Hello again
by PensAreAwesome
Summary: SEQUEL to Everything changes. Set around six months after the previous events. Claire and Sylar have established something resembling a friendship. But, wait, where is Sylar anyway?
1. Chapter 1

Claire woke on the couch again. She must have dosed off watching TV… _again_. It had been almost six months since the "curious case of Corey Kenrick", which, by the way, was _still_ unsolved to Claire's annoyance, and things hadn't gone all that well since then to be honest.

She stretched her body as she flipped through the channels, stopping on TopShop where a mild looking housewife was right in the middle of explaining why some detergent was better than all the others. _Just perfect_, Claire thought humorlessly.

The clock on the wall stated it was 05:13AM. _Typical._ She didn't remember the last time she slept through the night without waking up several times, and the last time she felt actually rested.

Claire stared at the coffee table in front of her with an utterly emotionless gaze. It was littered with half-empty glasses, dirty dishes, bottles and a dozen different sorts of meds from sleeping pills to the strongest painkillers you could get without a prescription. In the middle of all that mess lied some forgotten reports and files from work, books she had started and then tossed aside. No, things really hadn't gone all that well recently.

It had probably started with Claire's birthday about four months ago. Of course, she could begin the trail of misfortunes with the plain fact that she hated… perhaps too strong of a word, alright, _disliked_ celebrating her birthday. There wasn't really anything to celebrate, not anymore. She had stopped ageing, as doctor Suresh had predicted, around her 25th birthday. To be precise, she had never actually aged. Her organism had developed fully, which happened when she got 24, 25 perhaps, but she had never started to age.

One of the worst things, though, on that particular birthday had probably been her failed attempt to make her relationship with West work. She'd really hoped she could patch things up by then, but nothing had changed for the better, in fact he had permanently moved back to Costa Verde, transferred to the Company's Californian branch and they hadn't talked much since.

And then, of course, she had her family issues. Her mother and Lyle had flown to New York for her birthday as every year. Her mother always scolded her for working so much all the time that they had to come to NYC to see her at all. Her birthday was pretty much the only time they got together and every time it felt a little weirder for Claire – seeing Lyle all grown up, married and working in the field of IT. He was older than her by now, physically at least, and it felt almost impossible to get used to. It reminded her so painfully how mortal her family really was and the inescapable reality that one day they would die and she would remain. Alone in this world.

Her father, on the other hand, had gone off the grid, which made her worry constantly. They hadn't had the relationship they used to since Claire had thrown herself off that Ferris wheel but they still met whenever he was in New York to grab a cup of coffee together and catch up. The things that had been said, the harsh words that had been traded after the Central Park incident had been forgotten, or at least forgiven. He was still her dad and she loved him dearly.

But now he was lost. The Company gave no answers about his latest assignment or the status of his search. Maybe they suspected she was in on it, whatever _it_ was. After his disappearance there had been an interrogation after all and Claire had felt almost foolish that she had no explanations to give, not that she would have. Wherever he was though, if his vanishing had been deliberate, Claire knew he hadn't told her because he wanted to protect her. His need to protect her was most infuriating at times.

Claire poured herself a glass of scotch, tilting the glass in the air before bringing it to her lips. "Happy times," she chuckled darkly, while watching as an unhealthily tanned older man talked merrily about some golden trinket you just _have to_ buy. For a second she wondered what Sylar would say if he'd see how she was using his teachings of 'how to get drunk when you have a regenerating liver'. Nothing positive, she imagined. Or maybe he'd produce one of his gruff laughs?

She hadn't seen him since their Boston job but to her surprise he sent her a birthday present: a painting starring no other than Claire herself. It was pretty good she thought, she was almost impressed, though it made her laugh as she debated within herself if he'd made it himself. She concluded that he had. Now it was hanging proudly above her TV and every time she looked at it, she could see him in her mind's eye covered in paint with a brush in one hand and a palette in the other. In some of her wildest visions he was even wearing a beret, which made her laugh quite uncontrollably.

He's gift had also included a birthday card. Claire set down her drink and went over the messy table to locate it. Finally she dragged it out under an empty vodka bottle. She really needed to clean up this place. It was a simple store-bought card with a huge birthday cake in the middle and the golden numbers of 2 and 5 on the top of it.

"Dear Claire," his neat handwriting said inside.

"Forever 25? Some people would kill for that." She wondered if it was supposed to be a joke. Probably, but his sense of humor seemed to be as morbid as hers sometimes was. "Anyway, happy birthday! It seems that the Company is kind enough to arrange a trip to New York for me very soon, so I might give you a call then, give you my congratulations face-to-face." She couldn't help but laugh about that jape again. And that was it. He'd signed the card with "Your old pal Gabriel."

Claire put the card aside again, frowning. That had been four months ago. He had never called her. She pondered whether he had been to the Company already, completed his mission and gone back to Texas without contacting her or whether he'd gone AWOL again. If he'd gone AWOL, Parkman would have probably said something, though. But then again, why should she care anyway? It wasn't like she had some strange need to see him or talk to him. Or maybe she did. Everybody around her was disappearing – Peter, her dad… West. Well, technically West hadn't disappeared but it sure felt that way to her. And now Sylar too, it seemed.

Oh, and Claire hadn't even gotten to the worst part. She smiled bitterly at that thought, snatching up her glass to take a mouthful of scotch. She had been suspended from work… _for the second time._ And this time for a whole month. No wonder she was drinking and downing pills by the handful in this boredom! It had been barely four days and she was dying of inactivity.

At least this time she felt it was for a good reason. For the first time she had gotten suspended for punching her partner. The Company had assigned her some insufferable douche to work with. He had been almost as incompetent at his job as he was annoying. Claire still felt he'd totally deserved what was coming for him. Needless to say they weren't partners anymore.

This time, though, she'd really crossed the line when she rammed their target's car out of the road. He could have died. But then again, he didn't. _No harm no foul!_ The Company didn't see it like that obviously. They called Claire's behavior overly violent or was it unstable? …something like that. They even wanted to send her to a psychiatrist but she had talked them out of such nonsense.

And now she was drowning in boredom. She needed something to do, a case, a mission, some other purpose than just living and breathing. And thinking about her dad and Peter and West… _and Sylar?_ Dare she admit?

What if something had happened to him? What if the government discovered who the flying man had been? Maybe he was in the basement of some nameless agency as he had predicted? Claire felt a tinge of guilt. It would be _her_ fault if it were true. She had made him fly. And at that very moment she decided it was time to go rogue. The thought brought a smug smile to her face for some reason.

Claire cast aside the thin plaid that had covered her while she was sleeping and turned off the TV getting up decisively. She showered, dressed and had a bowl of cereal before heading out to hail a cab to get to the Company's main facility. She knew she'd arrive early and that was excellent since then the building would be mostly empty and the risk of running into unpleasant people was smaller.

During the drive Claire hatched a plan of action. When they arrived at the Company she paid the driver and headed in taking direction towards to the file rooms. If Sylar had in fact reached New York and gone on an assignment there would definitely be paperwork.

She approached the file clerk with a resolute stride as if she had every right to be there.

The file clerk looked exactly like you'd presume a stereotypical file clerk to look – an older woman with her grayish hair set into a tight bun and a pair of thick rimmed glasses sitting on her nose. And, of course, she was completely humorless and unnervingly strict.

"Agent Bennet," she said raising her eyes from a crossword she was doing. She always caught you half-a-mile away like a bloodhound. And how the hell did she remember her name?

Claire walked to the desk, folding her hands on top of it. "I need to review the Forrester file," she declared curtly.

"Agent Bennet," she said again, in a lecturing tone. "The last I heard, you were suspended from work. I'm sorry but I don't have the authority to let you in." She sounded like she wasn't sorry at all.

"Nothing escapes your attention," Claire said with a fake smile, then turned around and walked away. What else could she do? Knock her out and sneak into the file room? That would be a dumb move even for her.

As she walked through the empty corridors back towards the exit, trying to come up with an alternative plan, she soon heard the echo of another pair of feet against the hard floor. She stopped, crossing her fingers that it wouldn't be Matt Parkman. The last thing she wanted was to explain to him what she was doing here.

Maybe there was some higher power up there? Because instead of Parkman agent Harrison emerged behind the corner. Dressed in a regular black suit, carrying a briefcase, he looked like a standard agent. Claire knew him rather well and thought he was a decent guy, easygoing and trustworthy enough.

"Hi, Greg," she offered and he stopped as well.

"Claire?" Harrison said, his lips curving into a sly smile. "Thought you were on a 'vacation'?"

"I was, got bored," she said matching his smile. "Tell me this, did you work with Sylar this time around?"

He snorted at that, running one hand through his short brown hair. "No. Guy didn't show up again. I was glad actually, I mean, c'mon, we don't need him. He's only a loose cannon and it's a little creepy to drive next to a fellow who's probably fantasizing about ripping your head open to have a peek."

Claire had to laugh at that. "Yea, I know how that feels," she said mockingly, rolling her eyes, which made them both chuckle.

"Anyway, even Parkman finally decided to hell with it. He's not sending anyone to get him this time so your safe, Claire."

"Good, good," she replied nodding half-heartedly.

"Hey, but I gotta run," Harrison remembered suddenly. "Meeting in," he glanced at his watch, "damn it, two minutes ago. Good to see you, try not to fuck up your suspension."

"I will," Claire shouted at his retreating form, "Bye, Greg!"

Harrison's footsteps slowly died down but Claire remained unmoving, thinking of his words. Sylar had never showed up. That was strange. Not impossible, sure, but certainly strange. Parkman had made it clear that the last time was his final warning. So why on earth would he pull such a stunt again? Especially when he told her he was coming to New York soon. And the fact that Parkman had dropped it? Those odds were very near to zero… Something was amiss here, no doubt, and Claire was going to find out what it was.

About an hour later she was standing behind an apartment door with a brass 203 on it. She knocked on the wooden surface and waited patiently. It was a Monday, but it was early enough, so she found it unlikely that Molly had left for a lecture yet.

You'd think that the Company's tracking system would be locked into some secret room in the deepest corner of the facility, but no. Molly's two dads, both on high positions in the Company, loved their adoptive daughter simply too much for that. So instead they bought her an apartment and sent her to a college near enough to ask her help whenever they needed it.

Claire knocked again and this time she heard movement from inside. "Who is it?" It was Molly's voice on the other side of the door.

"It's me, Claire," she provided quickly.

She could hear the lock turn and the door opened revealing a very tired looking Molly. Her long brown hair was a tangle and she was wearing her pajamas.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" Claire smiled apologetically.

"It's alright," she said kindly, stepping aside so her visitor could come in.

Claire made a pot of coffee while her host got dressed but they maintained a casual conversation, half-shouting to hear each other. Apparently, Molly had no lectures until noon today, so she had been out with some friends the night before. Now she needed some caffeine pretty badly. Waiting for the coffee to drip, Claire recalled how little the brunette girl had been when they first met on Kirby plaza and to think now she was nearly as old as she was… or well, her body was.

"So… who are you looking for?" Molly asked excitedly when they'd sat to the table, both holding a steaming cup in their hands. She was always so positive. Claire admired that. She was about to smile when she remembered who she wanted to find.

"Sylar," she said, eying the girl across the table with some concern. She knew Sylar was probably the last person Molly wanted to think about… ever, and she felt bad for asking but she had to find out where he was. Something told her he wasn't at home.

Molly didn't ask her why she wanted to find him nor did she protest in the slightest at her request. Maybe she didn't want to or maybe working for the Company had taught her not to. Anyway, she gave Claire a curt nod, stood up and walked to a bookcase to retrieve a pile of maps.

Since she and Sylar shared a certain link due to their interweaving pasts, she didn't need any possessions, a picture of him or anything like that to find him. Claire didn't actually know how Molly's ability worked exactly but some people she found more easily, other not so much. She supposed it depended on a number of things.

They sat in silence for a while. Molly had a pin between her fingers, ready to set it down, her hand hovering above the maps. Then she opened her eyes. "He's nowhere," she said quietly.

"Like Peter?" Claire said with a deep frown.

"No, with Peter I can feel that he's somewhere out there, I just can't determine where," Molly explained slowly, "_he_ isn't anywhere. He's dead."


	2. Chapter 2

The small town looked just the same as it had the last time she'd been there. Claire drove past the bus stop and the run-down liquor store. Yes, she was back in Texas, only this time she wasn't on a mission. Or, well, at least not on a Company appointed assignment.

She was there on her own accord. It was scary in a way because she had no back-up, no help to count on should she run into trouble. And yet it was exciting as well, being out there on her own, not having to give explanations or updates to anyone.

As Claire passed the local bar named the Dancing Hound she couldn't help but think back on the last time she'd visited the place with Sylar. How they'd thrown darts and gotten drunk.

When she turned down the familiar road that led to his house nearly forty minutes later, she almost lost it when the memories of the two of them riding that crappy old bike surfaced in her memory. She stopped abruptly in front of the house, clutching the wheel as she shook with laughter.

But after she got out of the car and let her eyes run over her surroundings, Claire knew immediately something was wrong indeed. The lawn around the house hadn't been mowed for ages, it seemed. The grass had grown knee-length and the house itself looked deserted.

Claire climbed up to the porch and tried the door. It was locked. Then again, really, what had she been expecting? Molly had told her Sylar was dead after all and she couldn't recall a time when that girl had been wrong about anybody's whereabouts. Regardless, Claire couldn't simply believe it. He couldn't be gone. He was the only person in this whole wide world beside her who would remain after everyone else would perish in time. Or that's what she'd thought, anyway.

She tried to imagine him like that as she walked around the house to try the back door. It was nearly impossible to conjure up an image of him lying somewhere, motionless, cold, _dead_. No, it couldn't be true. If it was… well, if it was, all she would have to do was to pull out the spike that was jabbed into the back of his head. And then he'd wake up again, wouldn't he? He'd be as good as new, just like she was after whatever horrors had befallen her. But what if they (whoever they were) had destroyed his body? Was it possible to destroy him completely? She didn't really know…

_And wait!_ He had the shape-shifting ability. He'd moved his switch-off spot, which meant they couldn't just jam a sharp object in the back of his head and be done with it. They had to find out where to stick it in the first place. How the hell could he be dead?

Claire rattled the knob of the back door but the entry remained shut. _Dammit._ She needed to get into that house. She had no other clues to go on, if there was something to be found, it had to be in his house.

_Okay, whatever. _Claire rammed her fist through the small window, shook off the loose shards, and unlocked the door from inside. She stepped into the large kitchen half-expecting to spot Sylar's foot poking out behind the counter. That would be a neat explanation – he'd simply fallen on a knife while cooking dinner.

But no. The kitchen was spotless, the appliances humming quietly. It's weird how you start noticing all these little sounds in an empty house. Like the great grandfather clock in the living room. It seemed to be ticking so loudly, Claire felt a sudden urge to smash it. The ticking began to creep her out. Odd how something like that could have a calming effect on someone.

Claire went through the house accompanied by a glass of bourbon she poured herself while inspecting the study. The kitchen and living room were exactly as she remembered them. Even that medical book he'd been reading the night she stayed there lied comfortably on top of one of the book piles next to that fossil he called a TV.

The "clock-room" was as disturbing as always but she noted that some changes had taken place in the "everything-room" upstairs. The table in the middle was littered more sparsely than before and the jukebox looked to be in working order. The easel stood unoccupied and the canvases were compiled into a single pile. Claire flipped through some of them. He still seemed to have an admiration for Texan landscapes.

After examining the guestroom, which was seemingly unused since her visit, Claire found herself standing before the door to Sylar's bedroom. Scouring through someone's house was rude but invading a room he hadn't introduced to her felt like an actual violation. _Doubt he'd care since his dead, though_, Claire's mind whispered.

She pushed to door open only to find herself almost disappointed. A king-sized bed with white sheets, nightstand with a radio clock on top of it and another on the other side of the bed occupied by a heap of books, dresser and a walk-in closet. Nothing shocking really.

Claire opened the double doors that led to the balcony. She took a deep breath of the fresh afternoon air. The sun was sinking lower and the sky was bright with a few puffy clouds hanging on the blue canopy. She took in the view just for a second but after going inside again, she left the doors open to let in some of the warmness.

It didn't take long to go through the room. When she was done with the rest, Claire opened the door to the closet. An assortment of button-down shirts greeted her behind the door. Black, white, blue, red, striped, checked, it seemed he had a whole collection of them. And jeans and tee-shirts, even a few suits that must have been a leftover from his doctor-days in New York. He hardly needed formal wear in this small dusty town.

Claire sat down then, crossed-legged, and started to dig out shoe boxes, one by one, opening them to find pair after pair of sneakers or shoes. Not until she dove deep into the closet did she find a box that contained something different.

One thing that she recognized immediately was a certain wristwatch. Its face was cracked but she could easily read the letters that ran across it forming the word 'sylar'. Among other stuff she found the key to that old watch shop in Brooklyn he'd visited, interestingly enough quite a few snow globes, and a whole bunch of documents and old photographs. There was a high school diploma and another one that confirmed the acquirement of a university degree. Apparently he'd majored in mathematics which made Claire smile slightly, although she couldn't explain why.

She actually burst out laughing when she saw an old photo of him. On it Sylar was standing in front of that same watch shop and he looked nothing like himself. He was wearing a dress shirt buttoned up to the top, a sweater vest and grey trousers, his face seemed younger, almost foreign with the thick rimmed glasses and his neatly parted hair. His expression was meek, somewhat timid. _This _man she could call Gabriel without hesitation, this _truly_ was Gabriel. Claire didn't even notice that her own face had grown serious again when she finally tore her eyes from the picture.

She went through rest of the photos. Some were class pictures, others from his childhood, and on some of them he was accompanied by people who were presumably his mother and, on earlier ones, his father. They were his adoptive parents though, as he'd once told her. The photographs told the story of his past life. An entire life that was buried, forgotten. Or rather two lives. One as Gabriel and another as Sylar. Claire supposed she'd want to forget the latter one too if she were him. Or should she say would have been him?

_Because he's dead_, she had to remind herself again. That thought was like a needle stuck into her brain, itching, an unnatural object that needed to be removed.

She put the box back where she'd found it, wondering how mad he'd be if he knew she'd rummaged through it. But however interesting it had been to learn something about his past, it hadn't really helped her. She still had no clue what had happened to him or where his body was located, given it could be located at all.

After Claire had shut the closet's door she turned around, her hands folded against her chest. She'd searched every single room of the house and found nothing.

She walked downstairs, feeling oddly numb. _This house is bleak without him_, she thought as she walked back in front of it and got into her car. She sat there for a while trying to come up with a plan B, having to give up in the end.

As she drove towards the small town again, she suddenly hit the brakes to turn down another narrow dirt road.

She cut the engine looking at the white house before her with a grim expression. This was her last straw to grasp.

Claire walked to the front door. One knock was enough as moments later it swung open and like a déjà vu it was Jenny Colter who stood on the other side, looking as clueless as ever.

"Uh, hi," Claire started, "I don't know if you remember me. I'm, uh, a colleague of Mr. Gray."

"Oh, yea," she said in a chipper tone, nodding, "Claire Bennet, was it?"

"Yes, well, I'm searching for Mr. Gray, he, um, hasn't answered my calls and he doesn't appear to be at home. Do you happen to know where he might have gone?"

"Oh, wow, we haven't seen him in a _long_ time," Jenny said, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she was trying to recall when it had been. "But he did come by, gosh, it must have been nearly five months ago, or four, no, more like five," she stuttered slowly, almost like talking to herself, "he said he might have to go away for a while and," she suddenly looked up then, realizing something, "yes, he did mention you. He said you would probably stop by and in case you do, I should give you this note."

She turned around and walked into the house, half-shouting "I'll go and find it for you."

Claire stood there, dumbstruck, her mind working with feverish speed. _He_ had told Jenny that _she_'d come by. _What?_

Then the girl was back again, stretching out her hand to give her an envelope.

"Thank you," Claire said, looking rather stupid, she assumed. She didn't waste any time ripping it open right away. The envelope held only a single piece of paper with one word written on it: "attic". "I… I have to go," she said, still completely puzzled.

"Okay, goodbye then," the girl said with a friendly smile before closing the door.

Claire drove back to Sylar's house like some maniac. She was on fire! She had to know what was there to be found, though, she hadn't thought he had an attic at all. _But who cares?_ He said _attic_, so there must be one, what else could he mean?

Back in the house she combed through the second floor, inspecting the ceiling to find a trapdoor or something that would lead further up. After a half an hour long search, she felt pretty hopeless again but then she remembered she'd seen a ladder outside, leaning against the garage wall.

It took almost another half-hour to reposition the ladder and climb up. Right under the top of the gable roof was a small shutter that covered the entrance to the attic, making it barely notable from the ground. Claire opened it and crawled in.

The attic was so low, she had to bow a little even in the highest part of the long stuffy room. When Sylar had repaired the house he probably hadn't bothered to fix up the attic since it hadn't many uses to begin with, but it did provide a rather good hiding place.

In the left corner of the room Claire spotted a heap covered with a sheet. She pulled it off unveiling about ten canvases. With her mouth ajar she skimmed through them with slightly shaky hands. Most were of him lying on a table in some dark room, his hands and feet bound, shirtless. In some of them he was just lying, his eyes closed, face pale… dead? In others he was bloody, screaming she presumed since he was gaping.

Claire felt a cold jolt running down her spine when she looked at them.

But as she viewed on, there were other paintings as well. Claire gasped when she saw one depicting her on a porch, reading a note, with Jenny leaning against the doorframe looking her with some concern. She could even see the word "attic" written on the small piece of paper.

Next came a picture of Claire standing in the attic looking at a painting of herself standing in the attic looking at that very same picture. _This gets just weirder and weirder._ But then again in some ways it all started to add up…

Obviously Sylar had succeeded in summoning the legendary ability of Isaac Mendez who could paint the future. He then had foreseen his own death and a whole set of things that would happen next. After that he had simply followed the "instructions" – given Jenny the note as he had painted, knowing that Claire would receive it, which would ensure that she would find the canvases in the attic… _in the attic?_ Of course, so that if someone would, say, search his house, they wouldn't find them. But why did _she_ have to see them?

And then Claire came to the final canvas. "No way," she muttered to herself as she ran her finger over the rough texture. It was again of herself, only she was in a nighttime cemetery, standing on a grave with a shovel in her hand. Her feet couldn't be seen anymore because she was clearly digging it up. "_No fucking way_."


	3. Chapter 3

Claire paced in the study, a tumbler of bourbon in her hand, her eyebrows knitted together. In her mind she kept going over and over of what she knew and how it could help her.

The facts were simple: Sylar was indeed dead, he was buried to an unnamed cemetery and Claire was the one who was supposed to dig him up. Now the real question was: how to find the graveyard she was looking for? There must be tons of them all over the country…

Claire sighed as she sat down on the leather chair behind the desk. The progress she'd made had come to a stop again.

She took a long sip of bourbon before setting the glass aside. Then she lazily turned on the computer, twirling in the chair as she waited for it to switch on. She proceeded with searching the internet for death notification of Gabriel Gray or anything similar that could be of help. But as she already knew, it was only a fool's hope.

No, she had to puzzle it out herself. He must have given her all the pieces, what was she missing? It was driving her crazy!

Claire moved on to the living room after refilling her glass. She went over his music collection, picked out a CD and inserted it, turning up the volume, but her thoughts were reserved only for those paintings.

The dark room, his bloodless face, the note, she felt as if the images were haunting her as she lied on the couch, staring at the white ceiling. And even over the music she could hear that damn ticking, ticking away the time, when she needed more of it to solve the puzzle in front of her. _It seems as if the time itself is evil_, Claire laughed to herself.

An hour must have passed, or maybe more. It was darkening outside when Claire woke up with a start. She must have nodded off. For a moment she looked around, bewildered, but she remembered where she was as soon as she glanced at that ancient TV.

Then, suddenly, something rang a bell. She felt as if a light bulb had clicked on in her head. The painting, of course, how can she be such an idiot! The painting above her TV, the painting _he'd _sent her, surely in hopes that she'd notice something…

Claire chuckled a little. She _had_ noticed something, right from the beginning, to think of it. She'd dismissed it on account of his strange sense of humor, but apparently it had been a clue instead.

She could see it easily in her mind now since the paining had been hanging on her wall for months – on the upper left corner was a lovely old building with the sign in front of it and on that sign was written, with the tiniest script, "Calmwood funeral home". Claire couldn't believe she hadn't caught that sooner. Now it seemed rather obvious.

Had the painting been among the others, she would have connected the dots long ago. Then again, maybe he had feared she'd never come to find him, so he'd thought that sending the key lead to her would increase the odds. Claire suspected though, that it would have been more fruitful to simply tell her to get a shovel and head to Calmwood, if he ever disappeared. But who could really explain the twisted thought patterns of an ex-serial killer?

Claire rushed back into the study to enter the name of the funeral home to the search engine and found the address quickly. Learning that Calmwood cemetery was a small graveyard not too far from Bossier City, Louisiana, she decided to head out early next morning. It was dark out already, so she'd spend the night at the house to be fresh and ready tomorrow.

Claire passed the evening watching TV. She scurried around the kitchen and heated up some canned food she found in the cupboard. It was funny how at ease she felt there, almost as if she'd been in her own home. The murky house failed to scare her. Somehow she still felt safe.

She fell asleep on the couch, as per usual, with the soothing sounds from the TV in her ears.

It felt as if she'd closed her eyes just for a moment, but the next time she opened them again, the living-room was filled with sunlight. TV's bright screen seemed alien in the morning, so she turned it off, getting up slowly.

As she left the house, she reached her hand back through the broken window and locked the back door. She knew it didn't help much but she thought it was better than nothing.

Claire started her journey by driving back to the airport where she'd taken the rental car from. She returned it and made a stop in the terminal to buy a ticket to New York.

During her years in the Company she'd learned just how sharply her employers watched her and now she felt rather stupid for not hiding her intentions from them in the first place. They could easily track her movements and a part of her was surprised she hadn't received a call just yet and gotten scolded for launching her own personal investigation. But evidently Claire's actions hadn't captured their attention. Still, she wanted to give them the impression that she'd flown back to New York, should they care about the result of her search for Sylar, knowing they wouldn't likely check whether she was really on that plane or not.

Of course they could always track her using Molly's ability, but she knew it was more unlikely when they thought she was at home, killing time and waiting for her suspension to end. That meant she couldn't leave a paper trail across the southern states.

Claire also withdrew some money, but not enough to raise suspicion.

Next stop, the cheapest sleaziest used cars sales spot where they ask no questions nor fill any documentation if you care to ask nicely enough. After that, a hardware store to buy a shovel, then a convenient store to get a map of northwestern Louisiana, and snacks.

It took slightly over two hours to get everything, but finally Claire felt ready for her trip. Well, she had to hope that her wreck of a car wouldn't die on the way, but otherwise ready.

The drive from Fort Worth to Calmwood took a little under four hours. Claire hated driving long distances, although she'd driven quite a lot in her life and knew that even if she'd crash the car into a million pieces she'd still walk away unharmed. Maybe it was simply something encoded into human beings that even though she couldn't feel pain, couldn't die, she still felt scared when a truck came too close to her on the freeway. It was funny… and sad that something like traffic could summon terror in her while she could down enough pills to kill herself without blinking an eye.

Thankfully Claire had a recipe for driving fear. She just turned up the music and sang along as loudly and wrongly as she could. That always managed to calm her down.

After turning off the freeway, Claire had to rely on the map, which meant quite a few u-turns and frustrated sighs. But in the end she reached the Calmwood funeral home.

She recognized it immediately from the painting. The funeral home was in a big old house with a sign in front. Its beige color was somewhat cracked and weather-beaten and the place looked spooky in general, but it was the only funeral home in about 30 miles radius (as she learned from the internet), so that must have kept the business afloat.

Claire got out of the car and as she walked towards the house, she suddenly felt the weirdest sensation. It was like a déjà vu, only stronger, she was making that picture, that premonition come true, right there and then. It felt weird to say the least.

From inside the house seemed in a much better condition. The floors were of sleek oaken boards and the walls were covered in paintings with golden frames.

"Hello," Claire called out softly. That house had the kind of quiet aura that prevented you from shouting.

Moments later a man appeared in the large doorframe that seemed to lead to the parlor.

"Yes?" he said politely, stopping a few steps away from Claire. He was somewhere in his early forties, she presumed, with a round face and a balding head. He wore a black suit and despite its frayed look, the expression on his face was proud, though respectful. "I am Mr. Walker. How can I help you, Miss?"

"I'm searching for a gravesite and I was hoping you could help me… I believe that all funerals around here go through you?"

"Why, yes. We are known for our excellent work. This funeral home and taking care of Calmwood cemetery have been in the hands of our family for generations. Of course, not all burials take place in Calmwood, we attend to several other graveyards in the area as well," he explained in a low monotone voice.

"I'm looking for the grave of Gabriel Gray," Claire steered the conversation back to the point. "He, um, uh, passed away about four months ago."

"My condolences," Mr. Walker nodded at her piously, taking Claire's stammering as a sign of grief. "But I am afraid we haven't sent anyone by that name on their final journey." He walked to a stand with a thick book on top of it, and started turning the pages, probably trying to find the name. "I'm truly sorry," he said when he looked up again.

_Well, yes, that would have been too easy, right?_ For the umpteenth time things hadn't gone as Claire had expected them to go. Every time she thought it would be easy from there on, she'd mistaken. _Okay_, she told to herself, _time to start making stuff up_.

"That's very odd, sir," she said in an innocent voice. "I was told with absolute certainty that his burial was arranged by this funeral home. But maybe… oh," she made herself sound as if she'd remembered something only now, the gears of her brain going around faster and faster to come up with a competent lie. "Uhm, he _was_ in the witness protection program, so I guess it's possible he was buried under a different name?" She gave him the sweetest look she could muster in such a short notice.

Mr. Walker frowned as if trying to recall something. "Can you describe the, uh, man in question?" he said after a short pause.

"Tall, dark hair, thick eyebrows, um… prominent nose?" Claire sucked at descriptions, or at least at this particular one. That could have referred to any number of people.

But the frown on Mr. Walker's face only deepened. "And may I ask who are you in relation to the deceased?"

"Oh, me?" He'd caught Claire off-guard. She needed a quick answer that would convince him to tell her the truth. "I'm his sister," she blurted, but as soon as she'd said it and seen the surprise on Mr. Walker's face she realized it was quite unlikely for the two of them to be related when her description of him and her own appearance differed like night and day.

"Half-sister," she corrected hastily. "He was from my father's first marriage. We weren't very close these past few years, especially when he had to disappear and go to the protection program," Claire added little details to make the lie more plausible, then turned it into a sob-story. "And when I heard he was gone… I never had the chance to say good-bye. I just want to say farewell to my brother."

Mr. Walker had rushed to her while she spoke to pat her arm gently with a very sympathetic expression on his face. He must have been so very used to people like that. "Are you alright, Miss?"

Claire nodded shyly and he removed his hand.

"I do remember a man in accordance with your description. I did not carry out the embalming myself-" _I'm sure he was "already embalmed"_, Claire thought sarcastically, "-but I assure you he looked very proper. I arranged a casket, a cemetery plot and a gravestone. All very nice, very seemly. They told me his name was Charles Benson."

"Who told you?" Claire asked keeping her voice almost uninterested.

"The agents. Or they must have been? They had all the paperwork in order, death certificate, everything. I'll show you to his final resting place, shall I?"

After half an hour of wondering around the vast cemetery grounds, they stopped before a tombstone. 'Charles Benson', it said in bold letters that were engraved into the granite surface, followed by his birth and death dates by which, Claire noted, he was supposed to be 32 years old.

Mr. Walker left her alone to say her last good-byes. But there were going to be no last good-byes. This was it. The place where _they_ thought they could hide him away from the world, where no one was supposed to find him. Only she did find him. And soon it would be time to say hello again, to finally get the answers she'd been looking for: who was behind it? How did they do it? _Why?_

Claire headed back to her car. She spent the rest of the late afternoon in some random diner by the road. This region seemed almost as deserted as that dusty little town Sylar lived nearby.

She ordered a cup of coffee and pancakes and took her time to eat them. Minutes passed slowly, as if at snail's pace. Yes, time was definitely a cruel thing. Always hurrying away when you needed more of it and dragging on when you didn't.

When the darkness finally fell, she drove back to the cemetery, leaving her car at a safe distance, where it couldn't be spotted easily. She opened the trunk to take out her shovel and walked back to where his grave lied.

Black silhouettes of the headstones looked eerie in the night, accompanied by the sounds of crickets and soft wind rustling in the treetops. But Claire ignored the cold feeling that spread over her body, this weird anxiousness. Instead, she stuck the shovel into the damp soil and started digging.

One spadeful after another, she threw the dirt aside, getting deeper and deeper into the ground. But she had to admit, digging was hard work. She was panting by the time she'd dug for barely fifteen minutes.

Ignoring the dull pain that sneaked into her limbs, she kept going, taking pauses every now and then. An hour passed by and another, and Claire just kept digging. Getting shovelfuls of dirt out of the hole became harder as she descended deeper.

It took her altogether nearly three hours to finally hear that thump as the shovel hit something solid. By that time she was soaked with sweat and tired as hell, but no less determined. She threw the tool aside and got down on her knees to wipe the rest of the dirt off the casket with her hands.

A polished lid emerged from under the soft ground. Claire stood up to admire her work. Her nostrils were filled with the smell of moist soil, the smell of earth.

"Time to wake up," she muttered as she bowed again to open the casket's lid.

**AN: Thank you all for reviewing! It's a joy and an encouragement to get feedback. **


	4. Chapter 4

Claire pulled open the lid of the casket. It fell against the earthen wall with a soft thud.

She stood there for a long moment, unable to stop staring, almost as if frozen in place. The lid had exposed Sylar's upper body. He lied there, clad in a black suit and a white dress shirt with a black tie. _Very proper indeed._

His face was pale and motionless, like she remembered it from the paintings. _Dead._ It was such a strange sight to behold. Just to think that once upon a time Claire would have given anything to see him like that. She had dreamed of killing him for so long, obsessed over it like a drug addict obsessed over his next dose.

And how she had hated his "reformation". At that time she hadn't cared about the fact that he had stopped hurting people, that he tried to change, leave behind his murdering ways and be a good person once again. At that time she had needed him to be the monster, so she could hate somebody, direct all of her anger at one man.

Now he was there, right in front of her, dead. Just like she had wanted. And even after all this time, a little part of her kept whispering in her head how much he really deserved it.

It was weird to think how much power she had over him for once in her life. She could just close the lid, cover up the grave again and walk away.

Claire kneeled down next to him. He looked like a male version of Snow White, she thought, and for a second she couldn't restrain herself from bursting into laughter. He had the same white skin, the same black hair, only his lips weren't red, but thin and bloodless.

No, she couldn't walk away. She didn't want to. Whatever he'd once been, this monster who had stalked her in the shadows, haunted her in her dreams, he wasn't that anymore. He was just a man, who probably had to live the rest of his eternal life with more guilt and regret than she could imagine.

Claire ran a finger over his brow, then down the bridge of his nose and over his lips. His skin was cold, but not dry and stiff as a dead body's would be. In a way he didn't look dead at all. In fact, he looked rather peaceful as if slumbering. And not a least bit threatening. It was a very peculiar sight indeed.

But if she wanted to wake him, she had to find the spike or whatever they'd used to put him down and pull it out. She lifted his head a little. Gosh, it felt heavy, that was very dead-flesh-like. She felt the back of his head with her fingers, combing through his thick hair. But of course there was nothing.

Claire ran her eyes warily over his body. There were a number of places where he could have hidden his switch-off spot and she wasn't exactly thrilled of the thought about giving him a full body search.

Then again, it was Sylar, so there must have been some logic to the placement of the one spot that could kill him. He wouldn't have used his arms or legs. They were too random, she was sure of it. His heart perhaps? Or was it too obvious?

She was about to find out. Claire unbuttoned his shirt from the middle and slid her hand under the fabric, groping his chest for anything metallic, with her one eye pinched shut and the other gazing at the night sky. _Lord,_ she needed a drink.

There was nothing. Damn. Where was it? Not his stomach or his back, she reasoned. No, it must have been somewhere above his neck. He buttoned his shirt up again to avoid any awkward conversations later, and inspected his head with care.

And finally she found it. The glint of a metal object could be barely seen, it was stuck so deep into his skull. But she discovered it all the same. The spike was lodged under his chin, right where his neck started, pointed upwards, it seemed.

She had to dig her fingers into his skin to get a hold of it, pulling with one hand and holding his head in place with the other. For a moment Claire felt as if this scene was right out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but she could hardly find it funny at that very moment.

As Sylar had been dead for nearly four months, very little blood came from the wound when Claire managed to yank out the spike at last. She wiped the red smear off of his neck and then turned her focus on the long sharp object in her hand.

It made her cringe, despite the fact she couldn't feel any pain herself. Inserting that thing must have hurt like hell.

She put the object aside, monitoring Sylar with care, expecting him to snap his eyes open at any second. But nothing happened. The small red dot under his chin remained unhealed.

Claire climbed out of the grave and sat down on its edge, feet hanging down its side, waiting. She glanced at her wristwatch. Five minutes had already passed since she pulled out the spike.

Then ten minutes, fifteen… yet he still lied there, as dead as ever. And Claire felt this cold uneasiness sneaking up her spine again. Was it possible that he was really just dead? That he'd remained like this for too long to wake up again?

But if he didn't wake up… if he will _never_ wake up again, then that would mean that Claire was the only immortal person left in this world. Or at least the only immortal she knew of.

She'd thought a lot about her eternal lifespan during the course of this past decade or so, but she'd never really thought about having someone to spend it with. She'd always known that one day she'd be alone, when all her family and friends were dead, and she'd sort of accepted it. Still, somewhere in a deep corner of her mind, the knowing that _he_ was somewhere out there always remained. And somehow it felt soothing, even in the times she had still hated him so completely.

Existence without Sylar lurking somewhere out there seemed quite impossible for that brief moment as Claire stared at his lifeless body at the bottom of that grave. She didn't even notice that she was holding her breath.

_Come on, Claire_, a tiny voice said in her head, _he's not really dead. He's a cockroach who would probably survive the Third World War if such a thing would ever come to pass._

_Maybe a fairytale-ish kiss would wake him up? Ha-ha!_

Claire jumped back into the hole, kneeling down again. She slapped him across his face. "Wake up," she commanded. When nothing happened, she pulled one of his eyelids open waving her other hand in front of it. "Time to get up, you lazy sack of potatoes."

Still nothing. She slapped him again, pinched him, shook him. "Get up," she hissed furiously, though she knew it wasn't really his fault, he had no control over this. "_Please_, don't be dead."

And then, after what could have been the twentieth slap, she suddenly heard his voice. "Stop hitting me," he said in a low husky tone. He sounded like he hadn't spoken in a very long time which was, of course, true.

Claire jumped up, staring at him incredulously. The red puncture wound had disappeared and some color had returned to his face.

Sylar opened his eyes with difficulty. "God, Claire," he whispered barely audibly, "you look like you've seen a ghost."

Claire felt her lips curve into a crooked smile. "Oh, yea?" she said, confident again. "You look like a corpse."

Sylar propped himself up on his elbows taking in his surroundings – the dirt walls around them and the deep blue sky above them.

"I feel like shit," he muttered as he closed his eyes again and let his head fall back.

"Well, no time for that," Claire said, "we gotta get out of here and before that we gotta fill this hole in."

"Ugh," he sighed tiredly.

Claire stepped closer and stretched out her arm. "Come on, I know a place where they've got some pretty decent pancakes."

"Do they have peach pie?" he said hopefully, his eyes open again.

"I think so," Claire said while he accepted her hand and let her help him up.

They filled the grave in silence (except for Sylar's "Who the fuck is Charles Benson?"). Although Claire only had one shovel, it didn't take more than an hour. After that they walked back to her car.

Claire turned on the engine, but didn't start driving. Instead her eyes flickered over to Sylar, who sat on the passenger seat, looking around quite aimlessly.

"My mouth tastes like I've been eating ashes for…" he stopped, looking at Claire expectantly. "How long?"

"Four months," she provided.

"_Four_ months?" he said unbelievably. "I've been dead for _four _months? It took you _four_ months to…"

"It would have been a whole lot less if you'd told me about your little vacation."

Sylar laughed at that, though even his laughter sounded hoarse.

"The glove compartment," Claire said, steering the car slowly back to the road again.

He popped it open and took out a small flat bottle of cheap whiskey.

"_Thank god_," he grinned, screwing off the cork and taking a huge gulp.

"So," Claire started, her eyes following the road, "aren't you going to tell me about it? You know, what happened?"

He laughed again, only this time it sounded humorless. "I'm trying to remember…" he said, his brow wrinkled in concentration. "It's all a tad blurry right now."

It took them no more than 15 minutes to get to the diner (which was fortunately open 24h). They sat down to a table by the window, across from one another. The waitress appeared almost immediately, her jaw moving in the rhythm of chewing gum. "What can I get ya?"

"Two slices of peach pie and two coffees," Sylar said impatiently, waving her away. Claire gave him an annoyed look and he answered with a nonchalant shrug.

"Oh, it's a blast to be alive again," he smiled when she didn't say anything, stretching his body. "I can't wait to sink my teeth into something edible."

"I imagine so," Claire said dryly. However amusing Sylar's enthusiasm for being alive again was, she was hungry for information.

But as she opened her mouth to get to the point, the waitress came back. She laid a cup of coffee and a plate with pie in front of both of them.

"Ya folks come from a wedding or somethin'?" she asked curiously eying Sylar's black suit.

Claire and Sylar stared at each other for a second before they gave up and started laughing. The waitress looked surprised.

"Actually we come from a funeral," he said which made the waitress look almost shocked considering their obvious amusement. After she'd disappeared back behind the counter, they took some time to calm down again.

"Damn it, I wanted to say I was the deceased and you were the gravedigger, but I was laughing too hard. Can you imagine what she'd done then?" Sylar asked between chuckles, his comment unleashing another roar of laughter.

"It's really freaky that it's actually true, you know," Claire noted.

They sat for a while, eating and drinking and watching cars pass by on the road outside.

"So do you remember what happened?" she asked him finally, serious again.

"Not exactly…" Sylar shook his head, then looked at her almost desperately, "I was hoping you might… know something…?"

"Me? Why would I know anything? I just followed the painting. It's sort of a miracle I found you at all after all the obstacles I ran into."

"Damn," he swore, massaging his temples with his forefingers.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?" Claire suggested. "It started with the paintings, didn't it?"

"Yes," Sylar said, stuffing a piece of pie into his mouth.

"Why didn't you try to stop it from happening, then?" She felt a little irritated. She wanted answers and she wanted them now.

"You can't fight the future," he said plainly. "That's something Isaac Mendez taught me."

"Was it before or after you killed him?"

He raised one of his eyebrows, a familiar spark of anger in his eyes that vanished almost immediately. "Both, I guess."

"But why not try? It's not like we haven't changed the future before…"

"I didn't want to risk it. I knew you'd save me," he chuckled and winked at her. There was a short pause when they both concentrated on their food. "The thing is, though," he said then, "I knew I was going to die, but I didn't know who would kill me, when, how or where they would strike me. Painting the future is one maddening power that way. You can't choose the answers you get."

"So I did what the paintings told me, hoping that it would be enough. I even sent you one of the pictures to capture your attention. Then the Company called me back to New York," he said glumly. "I went. It's not like I could've refused."

"And?" Claire asked, edging closer to him.

"That's where things start getting hazy. I know I landed in JFK. I…, um, I walked out of the terminal, it was raining. I remember hailing a cab," he stopped for a while, frowning deeply as if trying to recall every little detail from that night. "I – I must have sat in, yes, I think I got in and then everything goes black. I remember only, uh, feelings? Or something like that. I remember pain…"

They stayed silent for a long time after that. Both lost in thought, sipping their coffee. The questions Claire had were not going to get answered, she realized. At least not right now.

"You have my power of regeneration, you should remember at some point," she reasoned.

"So I hope," he nodded, draining his cup and setting it down.

"Alright." That meant Claire just had to be patient. Not one of her strong suits these days, but she'd manage. "But that still doesn't explain why you didn't tell me where to find you. One thing is to try and change the future entirely. Making sure it'll happen is quite another."

Sylar looked her curiously, thinking about it for a minute. "I wanted it to be your choice," he said. "I didn't want you to do it because I told you so, but because of whatever reasons of your own."

Claire was about to say something clever when the bell over the door jingled and caught her attention. The man who entered was wearing a hoody and a baseball cap that hid his face.

He was just another costumer, surely, but somehow Claire couldn't turn her gaze from him. From the corner of her eye she could see the confusion on Sylar's face and how he turned around to see what had interested her.

The man seemed to be looking around the diner and when he turned himself towards their table, Claire could finally see his face. The most outstanding detail about it was definitely the long scar that ran diagonally from his forehead to the right corner of his mouth. But aside from it… the face was so very familiar…

She opened her mouth in astonishment. "_Peter?_"

**AN: Thanks for reviewing!  
**


	5. Chapter 5

"Claire!" Peter said, taking a few long strides and becoming to a halt in front of their table, "Gabriel." His face lit up with a warm smile at the sight of his niece and his old friend.

Claire and Sylar stared at him, then at each other and then at him again. "_Holy fuck_, Peter," Sylar laughed as he got up to embrace him. "It's been _a while_."

"Yea," Peter agreed, slapping him against the back, "It's really good to see you both again."

When he let go of his friend, he turned around to wrap his arms around Claire, who was still speechless. As she pressed her cheek against his chest, she felt happiness, this strange peace flow through her, even if only for a fleeting moment. As soon as he released her, it was gone again. He was here for a reason, she just knew it. He was as troubled as they were, and that thought saddened her greatly.

Peter sat down beside Sylar, who signaled the waitress to bring three cups of coffee. "Where'd you get the scar?" he asked then, turning to his side to face him.

"Wow, that's one long story," Peter sighed, that boyish smile still on his lips, "but one I need to tell you, because, guys, I really need your help."

"We have a little mystery of our own going on here, but of course," Sylar said, glancing at Claire with mild interest.

Claire felt as if waking up from a deep sleep. "Yeah," she confirmed hastily. She just couldn't stop gawping at Peter. It had been so long. He still looked his old self, though a bit older and more tired, not to mention that ugly red scar, obviously.

"So… tell us!" she added after a short pause in a chipper tone. She suddenly felt excited again. It was her uncle, right there across the table from her. Her uncle, whom she hadn't seen for years. A million new questions popped up in her head, demanding answers she hoped to receive.

"Woah," Peter said, taking a sip of his coffee. "I guess I should start with a question of my own. Have you ever heard of an organization who calls themselves the True Nation?"

"_True_ Nation?" Sylar repeated, his eyebrows raised. He thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. "I haven't concerned myself with these new forces for years now… too many lunatics in this business, if it's anywhere close to what I think it is."

"I've heard the name," Claire said quietly, looking up to meet Peter's eyes. "Some, uh, five-six years ago, perhaps. They were a radical movement out of Seattle, against anything evolved, _including _evolution itself. A bunch of nutcases if you ask me…" She felt confusion washing over her. "What about them? They failed in politics _so_ badly, they must have disbanded in a year's time."

"No," Peter replied quickly. "I believe they went underground instead, retreated from the legitimate business, and operated onwards out of the public eye."

"Emma and I were in London about five and a half months ago. There was a car explosion, maybe you heard about it on the news?"

"Yes," Sylar said at once, "A member of the parliament was killed, right? From House of Lords?"

"Exactly," Peter nodded, continuing promptly. "We never stayed anywhere for long, but we'd just arrived and we never thought it could be an ill sign. We never thought they would find _us_. But in hindsight I guess we should've just bolted, no questions asked." He sounded sad when he said it and for the first time since his appearance, Claire realized that Emma wasn't with him. She'd been so shocked and then so glad to see him that the thought hadn't even occurred to her.

"It was the True Nation that was behind it," he said, his voice sounding hollow."Of course I didn't know it at the time. They never found any traces of an explosive device…"

"Wait a minute," Claire interrupted him, puzzled. She tried to ignore the weird emptiness in the pit of her stomach as she formed her thoughts into a sentence. "The True Nation was, or _is_ a group _against_ the evolved. If you're implying there was a person with an ability behind it…"

"Yes, that's precisely what I'm implying. That's what they do, I've researched it. They wanted the general public to think it was an evolved human who assassinated that politician. That's their very mission: to drive a wedge between us and them, so the governments would take more drastic action against us."

"And if they've made their way from Seattle to London, they must have quite a grasp," Sylar said in a grim tone. "They must have grown quite a bit during those five-six years."

Claire could feel her stomach turn. It was worse than she'd imagined, then. Moreover, she'd been completely ignorant of such developments. She could feel her old guilt bubbling up, threatening to crush her.

"_And_ if what you're saying is true," Sylar continued, looking even grimmer than before as he glanced at Claire meaningfully, "then I think this _True Nation_ was behind blackmailing Kenrick as well."

"I read about it. He's the man who was killed during the Washington demonstration," Peter said. "If he was planning to blow up the picket, I'm saying it definitely sounds like the True Nation."

"But that means they're fucking insane!" Claire heard herself half-shouting. Thankfully there were hardly any people besides them in the diner in the middle of the night. "I mean," she resumed more quietly, "they were ready to kill hundreds, if not thousands of people who share their twisted view of the world in the name of what? To make it look as if some enraged psycho with an ability to explode did it? So that next time there'd be ten thousand radicals demanding our confinement?" As these words rolled off her tongue, Claire realized that this was probably exactly what they wanted. And to be honest, it scared the shit out of her.

The three of them looked at each other with some discomfort before Sylar reminded them that Peter hadn't finished his story.

"Oh, right," he snapped out of his train of thought. "At first everything was alright. Emma was worried after the car explosion and, I suppose, I was too. Everybody was talking about the possibility of an evolved human being behind it. The victim had been in a commission that dealt with our rights and legislation after all. There were some pretty worrisome opinions circling in the media, even some acts of violence against our kind. I told her not to worry, told her it would pass soon. Only it didn't."

Claire heard the words, but her mind was somewhere else. She vaguely remembered seeing something about the London events on TV, but violent behavior towards the evolved wasn't sadly that uncommon to alarm her. Back then it had likely just been some news story that was playing in the background while she was getting drunk on the couch.

Sylar across from her was listening intensely, his frown so deep, he looked rather wolfish with those thick eyebrows of his.

"Soon came the letters," Peter proceeded stiffly. "They were odd. Asking us to 'join them', so we could 'achieve great things', wanting to meet us, to talk about 'our future together' and all other sort of bullshit. They frightened Emma and they frightened me as well, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they thought we'd join them."

"We decided it was time to disappear, but it was already too late… One night I woke up to some commotion and they were there, in our apartment. I tried to grab Emma and run but-" he stopped for a moment to swallow a lump that had formed in his throat "-the only ability I had was the one that hid us from the Company. So when we couldn't escape, I tried to fight them, but there were too many. One of them hit me, and I swear, he must've had an ability because that punch was so powerful it knocked me right out of a window… I fell down three storeys."

"The next thing I knew I was in a hospital and it was a month later. I was wrapped in a ton of bandages, unable to move, and they told me it was a miracle I had survived. I kept asking about Emma, but nobody knew a thing about her. It took me almost two months to get on my feet again and since then I've been searching for her. That's how I heard about the True Nation, don't ask me how deep I had to dig, and I know its them, I _just_ know its them who took her, who sent those letters, who broke in," he finished fiercely.

"And we'll get her back," Sylar said calmly, though his eyes were burning. "Do you know how to find them?"

"That's the thing," Peter sighed, "I don't. However deep I dug, I couldn't find out that."

"Any other leads?" his friend wasn't about to give up.

"Two, actually, but unfortunately they're out of my reach."

"What do you mean?" Claire put in curiously.

Peter felt his pockets and pulled out a piece of paper. "When I researched about the True Nation I found out about two instances where their evolved "tools" have been captured by the police. Usually they disappear or die. One of them is some guy named-" he glanced at the writing on the paper before him "-Ben Adler and the other one you might remember, our old acquaintance from level 5 – Flint. Only they're both in high-security prisons now, where I can't reach them."

"Damn it," Sylar murmured. "If one of us could phase or…"

"We can't," Peter said curtly.

Claire felt a small smile spreading over her face. "Guys," she whispered, and they both looked at her. "Flint Gordon is my uncle. I'm sure I can get in."

"He is," Peter muttered matter-of-factly, seemingly surprised that he hadn't thought of that himself.

"So where are we heading?" Sylar said smiling slightly as well. Finally things started moving in a favorable direction again. And that was really all they needed, a new horizon to strive for, a fresh lead to follow.

"Colorado State Penitentiary," her uncle said, chuckling at their new-found optimism.

They sat in silence for a while, all sipping their half-cold coffee when Claire suddenly thought of something that left her at loss.

"Peter," she started, "how did you find _us_?" They were in some random diner in Louisiana, it was in the middle of night and her uncle simply walks in the door. What are the odds of this being a coincidence? Very little to none?

"I visited my mother," he complied. "I took her ability and that night I dreamt of you, of this diner and of this night, and I knew I had to get here, had to meet you again and, I am truly sorry for that, include you in this pursuit." Claire observed him as he explained himself, glancing at each of them in turn. He looked so worn out, so strained, but yet so hopeful. That was _so_ like Peter, Claire thought to herself, he could be dead tired, chasing some near-hopeless thread, but still he always found the strength to go on.

She also thought about Angela and where she might be these days, but before she could say anything, Peter spoke again. "Wait, earlier you said you had a mystery of your own?" he reminded them.

Claire wondered for a second if he changed the subject so abruptly because he didn't want them to ask questions about her, but decided it was better not to voice those thoughts.

Sylar and Claire started to recount the events that had led them to this diner, interrupting and completing each other constantly.

After they finished telling the story a tense silence descended. "It's all connected," Peter finally said.

"I agree," Sylar growled, who had also heard the full story for the first time, "and considering Parkman's reluctance to chase me, I say he's got his fat little fingers _all_ over this."

"But connected _how?_" Claire asked. "Let's assume that the True Nation was behind the London car explosion and Corey Kenrick's case, but why did they need to get rid of Sy- Gabriel," she corrected herself quickly, "and why abduct Emma?"

Sylar looked at them as if waiting for someone to say it first. "Her power," he said slowly. "They probably want to use it to their advantage somehow."

Claire didn't want to think about some creeps forcing Emma to use her ability to execute some awful plan… _again_. She was so kind, so sincere, she didn't deserve this. No, she couldn't think about Emma right now. "How did they even find out about you?" she wondered instead.

"I don't know…" Peter shook his head, perplexed.

"Parkman snitched?" Sylar suggested dourly.

"The thought of him being involved in this somehow crossed my mind too when I learned about his decision not to go after you…," Claire said, "but Matt Parkman a snitch to some underground organization who loathes our very existence? No, I don't buy it. He may have changed for the worse these past years but he wouldn't condemn his own kind. He has a son who's like us, after all."

"He _hates_ me, he'd kill me the first change he'd get-" Sylar argued, but Peter interrupted him.

"The only way to know the truth is for you to remember," he said decidedly. "They might have used the Haitian to wipe your memory or who knows what they did exactly but there's a way to restore it. Do you remember Daniel Linderman?"

They both nodded and Sylar muttered: "That Vegas mob boss?"

"Yes," her uncle nodded. "He could heal people, even return lost memories. I happen to know that he has a son, John, and I'm pretty sure he can do the same thing._ I_ need to find him and get his power."

"But what about Flint and the True Nation?" Claire asked, confused.

"There's nothing that I want more than to find Emma, but if it's true and this is all connected then we need to get as much information as we can," he said simply. "You go and see Flint, find out what you can, and I'll find John Linderman. We'll meet up again."

"Alright," Claire allowed, "but we need to be careful. Don't forget that the Company can track us whenever they feel like it. The only thing that's protecting us is the fact that they think Peter cannot be traced, that I'm rotting in New York like a good little girl and that Sylar is dead, assuming they had anything to do with that."

"Well, that means," Sylar said fake enthusiastically, starting to count on his fingers, "no air travel, no credit cards…"

"No cell phones," Peter added to their surprise. "I know I sound really paranoid, maybe I am," he uttered a short laugh, "but if there's someone like Micah out there, they might listen in on us and report to god knows who."

"Lord, it sounds like Sauron himself is after us," Sylar japed darkly.

"So how do you propose we communicate?" Claire inquired.

"I'll find you," Peter said confidently. "The dreams will lead me."

"They won't once you'll switch abilities," Sylar reminded him.

"Don't worry," he wouldn't recede, repeating his earlier words. "_I'll find you_."

Peter stood up with that familiar smile on his face. Claire loved that smile. It reminded her of that young man she'd once met in Union Wells High School, standing before a showcase, his chest full of crazy dreams and more courage than Claire thought one person could contain. The guy who saw good in everyone, the nurse who above all wanted to help people, and the hero who wished to save the world. This Peter right in front of her still possessed many of these qualities, but he wasn't naïve anymore nor careless.

They paid the bill and left the diner. As they stepped out onto the small parking lot, it was dawning outside already. In the east, behind a clump of trees, the sky was already a bright red color, slowly melting into yellow and then light blue, while in the west, it was still deep blue with a few lone stars yet to fade away.

Claire took in the fresh morning air, her eyes sliding up and down the empty highway.

"Bye, guys," Peter said, baring his teeth for one last smile, and they gave him their farewells.

Sylar pulled out that same bottle of whiskey and took a sip, offering it to Claire, as they watched him walk to his car. It was an old Ford, but she couldn't really say which model. She knew very little about cars.

Claire shook her head at Sylar. "I'm driving." He withdrew his hand and took another gulp himself.

Peter pulled out of the parking lot and too quickly his car vanished behind a curve in the end of the long straight road. They could hear the sound of his car engine for a moment longer but then it was all silent again, just the two of them standing in the rich morning light.

"Let's go," Sylar said, and started to walk towards their car. Claire tore her eyes from the road and followed him, groping her pockets for the keys.

As they drove away, in the opposite direction from Peter, she remembered that he hadn't even told them where he was heading, where he hoped to find this John Linderman. In her mind, she wished him good luck.

"Are you okay?" her once-again travel companion asked her, a touch of concern in his voice.

"Yup," she grinned, feeling oddly glad he was with her. "_You're_ the one who was dead for four months, _I_ should ask _you_."

He laughed gruffly, pulling his tie off with one hand and turning up the music with the other. "I couldn't be better, I love this song."


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: I'm sorry for the long delay. (Unfortunately I haven't had much time to write recently.)**

The road rushed by them, mile after mile of grey asphalt. The landscape varied from forests and small rivers to farmlands, and soon, Claire knew, they'd see the dry plains of Texas again since they needed to cross her old home state to get to Colorado.

Sylar was studying the map they'd bought from a gas station by the road, while Claire was sipping yet another cup of coffee. She was tired but since it was light outside, it seemed a little weird to stop in some roadside motel for sleep.

"Hmm, Colorado State Penitentiary is apparently in Cañon City, which is _only_ about 920 miles away," Sylar said quite enthusiastically, though there was certainly a hint of sarcasm in his voice as well. "I think you should let me drive, at least for an hour or two."

"No," Claire answered bluntly without bothering to look at him. It seemed more important to keep her eyes on the road and, even more so, to keep her eyes _open_.

Her mind was occupied by the thoughts of the man they were about to meet. Flint. Her uncle. She'd never regarded him as such, but the truth was – he was her uncle, her flesh and blood. And she had no idea what to think of him, how to see him. She didn't really know much about him…

"It's a 15 hour drive," Sylar reasoned, "with a normal car, which _this_ is not."

"You don't have your driver's license with you so it's still no." She wasn't going to take any risks.

"Alright," he gave up. "But then we'll stop somewhere so you could rest. Preferably somewhere with a Wal-Mart or something, so I could change out of this suit. Something you've been buried in _does not_ feel very comfortable to wear."

Claire nodded in conformation and asked Sylar to check the map for possible rest stops.

They spent the next 30 minutes arguing over which radio station to listen and trying to guess the songs that were currently playing.

"_Runaway_," Sylar yelled when the first notes of the song had sounded. "A great song from the American Beatle."

"Hah, it's ancient," Claire laughed, though she rocked her head in the rhythm. Sylar turned up the volume and hummed along, which made her choke back a laugh.

"I know that one!" she shouted when the next song came. "My dad used to listen to the Animals. It's _We Gotta Get Out Of This Place_."

"Oh, and that's not _ancient_?" Sylar smirked sarcastically, teasing Claire for her conception of the word 'ancient'.

Time passed quickly playing a game. They soon realized that almost an hour had gone by and they'd long missed the exit they were supposed to take.

"No matter," he said carelessly, unfolding the map to find another stopping place that would suit their needs. "Aaaand I know this one," he added when the next song began. "_I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire_."

"O, thank god for that," Claire shook her head with mock relief.

They pulled into a vast parking lot stopping in front of a Wal-Mart. "Do your thing," Claire said to Sylar as she tossed him her purse. He didn't have any money with him since whoever buried him hadn't been considerate enough to throw in his wallet. While Sylar was shopping she lowered the back of her seat to a horizontal position, hoping it wouldn't brake. If something was truly ancient it was definitely this car.

She tried to nap, but kept raising her head to see if he was coming back already. Finally Sylar emerged from the store wearing a pair of black jeans, sneakers and – surprise, surprise – a striped grey and white button-down shirt.

When he saw Claire looking, he gave her a twirl, his arms stretched out to his sides, palms open. She answered with a condemning scowl but couldn't help but smile at the same time.

"So… should we get a room or-" he stopped when Claire quirked an eyebrow, her face quivering a little since she was holding back a laugh. "Okay, maybe that came out wrong," he chuckled. "What I meant was – would you like to rest somewhere?"

"I think I'll just sleep in the car," she said. "Just for an hour or so, then I'll be fresh enough to drive on. No point renting a room for such a short time."

Claire parked the car under a huge pine tree that casted large enough shadow for them to keep out of the sun. They left the windows open to catch a rare gust of wind, but as the noon was approaching, the heat level outside was increasing rapidly.

Claire curled up on the seat and closed her exhausted eyes. She could sense Sylar sitting next to her, heard how he opened the car door and set his feet on the asphalt, how he stood up, probably looking around, and then the grinding of what she assumed to be a lighter. She could even feel the faint smell of cigarette smoke just before she fell asleep.

But it was almost impossible to _stay_ asleep in the hot and stuffy car salon without waking up every now and then. Claire managed to remain in this half-sleep, dreams and brief waking moments blurring into a restless slumber.

She finally woke to a rustling noise, jerking promptly into sitting position. She noticed vaguely that the parking lot was still flooded with bright sunlight, but the temperature in the car had decreased somewhat. The first thing that truly captured her attention, though, was Sylar.

He had lowered his seat as well and was trying to sleep on it, only his legs were too long for the car to accommodate, so he had stuck them out of the window. He was stirring in his sleep, murmuring unintelligibly. At some point he pulled his legs back into the salon and started turning from side to side in search of a comfier position.

Claire would have laughed, but his groggy muttering seemed to become more panicky with each passing minute. For a moment she thought she heard the word 'Elle', but then again it could have been 'hell'. For her they were nearly synonyms anyway. The rest of his mumbling made as little sense, mostly consisting of incoherent speech. At the same time he started trashing around more intensely. It was a little scary, to be honest.

"Sylar?" she said uncertainly. "Ups, I meant Gabriel." Damn, it was still somehow unnatural to call him that and she just kept on forgetting.

He didn't wake, only muttered more loudly. She slapped his arm and kept on calling his name. When his struggling resulted in hitting her in the face, Claire knew she had enough.

She grabbed both of his shoulders and shook him almost violently. "WAKE UP!" she yelled.

At once his eyes snapped open and for a long moment he stared at her as if he hadn't recognized her at all. "We need more coffee," he said then, his voice thick with sleep.

Claire gave him some money to get them both a fresh cup. Thankfully she still had quite a decent wad of money left and whenever they ran out, Sylar could transform stuff into gold so they'd manage.

While Sylar was on coffee-duty Claire wondered what he'd dreamt of, though it was clear it had been more of a nightmare, but her train of thought was cut short when he got back, handing her a huge steaming cup of good-bye-sleep.

They drove in silence for a while, both still a bit drowsy, but coffee did its work well and soon Claire felt liveliness creeping back into her body.

"Tell me about your life before," she said before she could stop herself. Claire was curious by her nature and resent events had somehow made her wonder about things she hadn't thought about before. "When you were just a watchmaker."

"Instead of the murderer I became?" Sylar said sharply. _A tad grumpy after sleep, huh?_ "You found the box didn't you?" he continued almost accusingly, though one side of his mouth was curved upwards. "I knew I should have hidden it better…"

"Alright. I found it," she admitted smugly, a smirk dancing on her lips. "And I went _all_ the way through it, and you know what? I even laughed when I saw this one picture of you. Will you tell me anyway?"

"No."

"Oh, come on. We have a long drive ahead," Claire pleaded, transforming her smirk into a sweet smile.

"Fine. I'll answer your questions if you answer mine… _three_ questions, let's say, you know, to make things more interesting," he explained, grinning, and Claire remembered just how much he liked to play games. _Guess some things don't change_. For a moment she imagined them spinning a bottle between them and found herself glad their game would have only truth and no dare.

Well, she had nothing to hide! "Deal!" she nearly shouted. "So… tell me!"

"Tell you what exactly? I mean I was just a regular watchmaker," he chuckled quietly. "I spent my days working in the shop restoring old timepieces. Sometimes I even stayed there entire nights, lost in my work." He spoke as if he was lost in his thoughts now. "I'd turn on the radio and sit there for hours, repairing a clock or a watch, or doing paperwork. I had no employees so I took care of the financial side myself too."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

"Which was just perfect for somebody who had no life outside of his job," he japed.

"But if you were so unhappy, as you once told me, if you wanted to be more, then why didn't you change something? You had a college degree in your pocket and I bet you could've gotten a pretty good sum for that shop if you'd sold it."

Sylar let out a tired breath as if he'd hoped she would continue on some other subject. "Happiness is just an illusion, and so is misery," he said cryptically. "We're never satisfied with what we have, which is both: blessing _and_ a curse. What I didn't realize back then was a simple truth - I wasn't miserable because I was a watchmaker. In fact, I loved my job, as embarrassing as it may be to admit. I was miserable because my job was _all_ I had. I was a coward who wanted to change but couldn't."

Claire's eyes were clued on the passing scenery as she thought about what he'd said. "But you _did_ change," she said quietly.

"Ah, yes." He sounded bitter. "Not for the better sadly." As he finished his sentence, Claire knew that he'd say no more on the subject. And although she wanted to know more about his former life she knew better then to prod him further. Maybe a decade wasn't enough to get over some things.

"I could ask _you _the same thing, though," he proceeded. "You're unhappy, but yet you keep on going without trying to change your life."

Claire's brain froze for a second. "I'm not unhappy," she said just a little too quickly.

She could feel Sylar's frowning gaze on her. "I thought we weren't supposed to lie," he said in a silky voice. It was amazing how he could switch from his broody attitude to a smug grin in a flick of his fingers. And she found it more than a bit irritating how much he enjoyed busting Claire when she lied. Especially when she lied to herself.

"You have an unfair advantage," she pointed out. He could literally detect when you were lying. _Totally unfair._

"No, not unfair. You lie, I don't. At least not right now, not to you. What would be the point?" he said sincerely, giving her that look that felt like he saw straight into your head.

"Alright. Why don't _I_ change my life?" she asked more from herself than him. "Maybe it's as you said, that misery is just an illusion. I _like_ helping people, I _like_ having a mission. It gives at least some meaning to this gaping eternity that's looming ahead."

"You could help people by becoming a doctor or a scientist or a teacher, even a homicide detective in a _real_ law enforcement institution. If you want to help the evolved community then why not legitimate politics or lobbying? Why _this?_"

"This is what I'm good at," Claire said, already annoyed by his persistence. Talking about _why_ she did what she did was one of her least favorite topics… which was probably why he'd chosen it.

"You have infinite time, Claire, you could become an expert in _anything_, hell, you could excel in nuclear physics if you wanted to, and that's really saying something."

"I don't know, okay!" she snapped. "I _don't know_ why this. Uhm, the Company is where my friends work, my father works, it is what my biological family has built."

"They're _not_ your friends. Parkman, Suresh, even sweet little Molly. They're trying to hunt down your uncle, remember?" he said with some heat in his voice. She wondered if he hated them like they hated him. Or maybe he hated that they were living breathing testifiers to what a monster he had once been.

"Then I really don't know," she sighed resignedly. "Why'd you stop working as a doctor? You said you got tired of New York, but as far as I know there are hospitals elsewhere too."

"You're right," he said flatly. "I made a mistake. That's why I stopped working in medicine. I made a mistake and a man died because of it."

"People make mistakes," Claire reasoned.

"Yes, but people make mistakes a lot more often when they're so high they can't see straight. I was screwed up then, reckless and foolish. And I worked in a hospital. _In a hospital_, where I could get my hands on drugs so easily, there was hardly any challenge in it. And I don't mean the lame stuff, I mean the strongest shit you can get. Not to mention I could fake prescriptions. I was hooked on, uh, Opana, Roxicodone, Adderall, Ritalin…, then um, Ambien, Desoxyn, of course the ol' faithful Xanax, I could go on…"

"No way," Claire muttered absently.

"Oh yea," Sylar nodded grimy. "But because of your ability, I couldn't really get physically addicted to anything. Psychologically, well, that's a whole other story. And psychologically I was definitely hooked."

"So what happened?"

"I managed to make it function… and for a _long_ time," he said, looking out of the window, with a voice so monotone Claire felt as if she'd been back in college, listening to some boring lecture. Only what he said was actually interesting. "I worked long shifts in the hospital, always trying to rest for a few hours before a surgery and after work I'd go home and get high on whatever I had lying around. I spent my nights watching TV while I felt as numb as a rock, completely apathetic. I went to parties, to clubs and pubs and bars when I couldn't sleep. I had some drinks, made some new friends only to forget their names by the following morning. Not that I ever saw them again. Sometimes I took long walks around New York, climbing into abandoned buildings, jumping from roof to roof. Just for the thrill of it, just for fun. Oh, I did all kinds of stupid things. But the more dependent I got, the harder it was to stay sober, even for a short period of time. In hindsight I'm still baffled I got away with all of it, that the hospital staff never actually caught me. I mean I would have faced criminal charges if they had. And I would have deserved it. But in the end I left on my own accord. It was really just a simple surgery, one I'd performed many times over. I thought: "what the hell, I can pull it off" although I had downed a handful of… something. But I couldn't. I don't even remember what happened exactly. All I know is that he died because of me. I wanted to help people but I failed. After that I resigned immediately. The man who had died, Hank Noonan, he didn't have any family, nobody to really miss him. I didn't even get sued for what had happened, though I doubt I would have been convicted. There was no evidence that I had been under influence. So I quitted, moved to Texas and that was it."

"Wow," was all Claire could say. "Just… wow. I had no idea." She wondered briefly if she was supposed to feel angry that he had acted so heedlessly when he should have concerned himself with nothing more but how to make up for all the lives he had taken. "But… why?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Because I wanted to feel something else besides guilt and anger. And getting high made me feel numb or, at times, euphoric. But mostly it made me feel nothing at all, no sorrow, no self-loathing, nothing. I could forget everything around me, my past, my future, even the present, it all receded into a mindless blur."

Claire could certainly understand the itching desire to escape reality. Especially since she'd been trying to escape it herself every now and then. Maybe she would have accomplished it too had she possessed the tools Sylar had had at his disposal.

"Is that why you broke up with Tracy Strauss?" she blurted, remembering a split second later that one should think before asking a question.

"Oh, no," Sylar laughed, though there was no humor in his voice. "You've had your three questions so I have no obligation to answer that. And I _never _said there was anything between us, for heaven's sake."

"Oh, please, that hardly counts as three! The third was merely a specification," she argued. Things had just gotten interesting and now he was hitting the brakes. What a bummer.

"It's three, Claire, don't argue with me," he said calmly. "I, on the other hand, have still two questions left."

"So," she gritted her teeth, keeping her eyes stubbornly on the road not to witness his victorious smile, "ask away."

"West. Why'd you break up with him?" he asked, turning the tables. Yet he had none of that maddening satisfaction in his voice, but just a bit of curiosity. "The age difference?"

"We're roughly the same age."

"For now, maybe, but in the end you can't overlook the fact that he's ageing and you're not."

Claire frowned at that thought. Not that it hadn't crossed her mind before… only like every day. Just that such a distinction applied to the whole population of Earth except for her, Sylar and maybe someone else out there she may never meet.

"I know," she sighed defeatedly, "but that's not the reason." _So why had they broken up?_ Claire tried to recall all the small things that had led to their separation. "I can't deny, though, that that eminent future clouded our relationship, even when we didn't talk about it," she admitted after thinking about it for a while. "I guess… I guess that's why I couldn't really commit to it. It's seems rather pointless when you already know how it's all going to end…" she muttered without noticing how sad she sounded.

West had wanted it all – a house with a picket fence, kids and a puppy dog. Claire hadn't wanted any of it. Not such a mystery when you think about it.

Recently it seemed to Claire that every bad thing in her life stemmed from the fact that she was immortal. The very ability most people would probably give anything to obtain appeared to overshadow her existence. _Rather ironic_, she thought.

They drove in silence for a long while. The sun had wandered past its peak and had started to drop lower and lower, though the weather remained just a little too warm. _What she would have given for an air conditioner! _Claire glanced at the clock and found it was a quarter past four. Louisiana was now behind them now and also the city of Dallas, Wichita Falls lied straight ahead. And somewhere between them the green landscape had become a barren wasteland with only dry bushes and fields of straws.

"So aren't you going to ask me your last question?" she asked at last.

"You want me to ask you?" he replied, only the slightest hint of amusement in his tone.

"No," she said darkly. "But fair is fair."

"Alright, let's make this a simple one," he started, then paused for a moment. "Do you hate me still?" he finished so casually as if he was asking her what the time was.

"No."

"No?" There was certainly glee in his voice this time, perhaps even a sense of achievement.

"No, I don't hate you. I spent four hours of my life digging you up so that should have been kind of a giveaway."

"I guess," he grinned and Claire felt her lips curving upwards too.

They took the next exit to get off the highway. Sylar scanned the map to find some place they could eat and, for later, a place to stay the night. It was clear they would never make the drive without a proper rest.

Claire didn't mind getting off the major route. That meant she didn't have to drive so fast, especially since their car couldn't work up a considerable speed.

Smaller roads were more peaceful. After their questioning game the atmosphere in the car had cooled down again. The radio was bellowing out old hits, while they discussed such important matters like great bands and movies.

They were just in the middle of a heated argument about bands covering old songs, when the car decided to intervene by making the most horrible noise.

Both of them stopped debating to stare at each other.

"Do you have some special ability to wreck machinery, because this is the second time I'm having car trouble while travelling with you," Claire said as she pulled to the side of the road just as the engine died.

"Oh, don't try to pin this on me, I didn't buy this piece of junk," he laughed.

It felt somehow familiar when they both gathered in front of the car hood to assess the situation. Not that Claire knew anything about fixing cars. Nothing _seemed_ to be wrong to her, but of course something must have been since the car wouldn't start.

"I suggest we grab our stuff and start walking," Sylar said after a ten-minute-inspection, explaining onwards how he couldn't repair it because… it was all a bit too technical for Claire, so she didn't argue. And thankfully they had very little stuff.

The sun started to set as they walked along the dusty highway, vanishing behind the horizon with an impressive speed. Sylar kept his back towards their moving direction so he could hitch-hike at the same time. Cars came and went none of them stopping. They encountered a sign after about a mile of walking and found out that the next gas station was 11 miles ahead.

Time passed slowly, but as the air became cooler, Claire strolled down the road quite light-heartedly. Sure, they wouldn't make it to Colorado as fast as she'd expected and, yes, their car had broken down… it was like some odd tradition of theirs already, but the stars were starting to come out and the moon was incredibly pale tonight. It wasn't really so bad.

"Look, the Big Dipper," Claire shouted, pointing her finger skyward. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet night.

"Yea," Sylar stopped, twisting his neck to see it better, his thumb still held up. "And there's the Little Dipper, too." Claire turned her head to see the asterism he was pointing to.

The sound of a car horn startled them and as they swung their heads to the direction of the noise they saw red brake lights in the darkness some fifteen feet ahead.

"Where're you heading?" Sylar asked when the driver rolled down the side window.

It didn't take them long to learn that the driver, Miles, was a mild mannered college senior, who was driving back home to some small town. When they explained where they were going, he suggested he could take them to some bigger stopping place before he had to turn off the road they wanted to continue.

Sylar climbed to the passenger seat and Claire to the back and just like that they were on the road again.

Low music and the passing darkness outside had a lulling affect on Claire. She drifted off to a peaceful slumber, strangely dreaming of her mother and Lyle and Zach and bright summer days in Odessa, stopping right on the side of the road and picking ripe oranges straight off the trees.

When she opened her eyes everything seemed too bright at first.

"Finally!" Sylar cheered, his dark head hovering above Claire. "I've been waking you for the past ten minutes."

Her body winced upwards almost head-butting him. Sylar managed to pull away just a split second before their foreheads crashed.

Claire stared around bewilderedly. The change of surroundings had been too sudden. She was half-lying on the sidewalk, her head on his lap. He was sitting on the curb of the road, their meager bag of stuff beside him. But there were lights! There was a gas station to the left with a few cars in front, drivers scurrying around, and an illuminated sign of a motel behind it. And to the right, a bit down the dark road that passed through in front of them, stood a big wooden building with the name Buddy's Roadhouse on top of the double doors that lead inside.

"I thought we might go for a few drinks," Sylar said, motioning towards the roadside establishment. "My throat is drying."

"You're not serious," Claire sighed tiredly. "We have to wake early tomorrow."

"Oh, c'mon, Claire, don't be such a bore," he laughed irritatingly. "We don't even have a car! I'm thinking we'll have some drinks, meet some people, and find a transport for the morning. It's a win-win."

"Ugh," Claire mumbled resignedly, "and I thought _you_ were the responsible one this time."

"Well, I'm not irresponsible, if that's what you're trying to say. It's not like we're risking a nasty hangover or a trip to the hospital with alcohol poisoning."

He jumped up and pulled Claire to her feet. As much as she would have _loved_ to rest, she wasn't used to falling asleep sober anyway, so… what the hell…

As they walked towards the roadhouse, Claire could hear the muffled sound of music leaking from the walls. She was genuinely surprised when they entered and found the place so full of people.

Sylar immediately hurried to the bar to order two beers and six shots of tequila.

"I was under the impression we were supposed to have _a few_ drinks?" Claire asked, her brow raised. He only shrugged, smirking back at her while he moved one beer and three shots in front of her.

Claire had quite a laugh when she looked around the spacious room. It was as if straight out of some movie depicting a stereotypical Texan night-out. Many people were wearing cowboy hats, and tall boots, and all sorts of other attire she couldn't help but find funny. In the center of attention (aside from the bar, of course) was a stage where a band was playing. Country music, naturally. The only missing piece was a mechanical bull, Claire thought.

As the night proceeded Sylar kept ordering drinks in such a speed that a bystander might have gotten the impression he was trying to get a merry band of marines drunk.

"You really do have a new look on life after… what would you call it?" Claire asked after downing another shot. She'd lost count long ago. "To me it seems the phrase 'near death experience' just won't do. So… death experience?"

"I guess," Sylar repeated curiously, his speech only a little sluggish. "But, nah, not really. Just quite a bit of time to make up for."

They both made acquaintance with some pretty interesting people during the night, but met by the bar counter every now and then to report progress and get a refill.

Claire met a bunch of middle-aged salesmen who were spending their vacation taking a motorcycle trip from Port Arthur to somewhere in California, a group of college students from Austin getting completely and totally wasted, a tattoo artist who complimented her arms as 'great for tats', and two surfer guys who were passing through on their way to Jacksonville, both hitting on her rather shamelessly.

She found out that most of them stayed in that nearby motel that was 'like really cheap' according to Dean, one of the two surfer guys. What she didn't find, though, was a means of transportation.

It was way past midnight… somewhere around three o'clock, perhaps? Claire wondered how the band was still playing, though not that she would have minded. One moment she was dancing with people she didn't know and howling along songs she'd never heard before, and then she was in the bar again, drinking something. Everything was tasting like warm water anyway.

She felt hazy. Or no… that was an understatement. She was just plain drunk, more than usually at least. Faces, lights and sounds seemed to all melt together into one colorful soup. She tried to spot Sylar but couldn't see him. Where was he? Not on the dance floor, she was certain of that. He'd said that he didn't dance, _not ever_.

_Ah, whatever_, she thought, as she accepted another beer that appeared to come out of nowhere.

…

Claire's head jerked up so roughly it made a sickening crack. She had only one question on her mind: _where the hell am I?_

The room around her was small and sleazy with a queen sized bed she was currently lying in, two nightstands and a TV across from the bed. The drapes were closed but the ruthless morning sun managed to illuminate the room with a dim light nevertheless. The small lamp on one of the nightstands was on as well, though it had fallen to its side. Claire turned it off cautiously, her eyes darting around the room.

_Stupid, stupid girl,_ she swore in her mind. She just had to drink so much. At least her ability spared her of the hangover, not of the embarrassment though. Memories of the last night's events started to submerge in her head and she would have given anything to make them stop.

She recalled spilling her beer on some big-bearded biker.

Falling down from a table… wait, why was she on top of a table?

Oh, Lord, not glimpses of her conversations! That was simply too humiliating…

No, she needed to get out of here, find Sylar, and get the hell out of this place never to think of it again.

Claire was prepared to get out of the bed when she suddenly realized she was wearing nothing else but her undies. _Oh. Shit._

She looked around the room desperate to locate her clothes but they were nowhere visible. Slowly she felt panic rising in her guts, but that was nothing compared to how alarmed she felt when she heard a noise from what she assumed to be the bathroom.

Claire watched with anticipation as the door swung open and a man stepped out of it wearing nothing but shorts. He had short brown hair, deep blue eyes and tanned skin. He looked disturbingly familiar. Claire's mind was working with hyper-speed, trying to connect the dots. It was the surfer, that damn surfer and his friend who were heading to Jacksonville. _What was his name?_

"Eh," was all she managed to get out of her mouth. She was too stunned to speak. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before.

_Dean!_ she recalled then. His name was Dean.

Dean smiled, or rather smirked. "Sleep well?" he asked gleefully.

"No," she said flatly. "Where the hell are my clothes?"

Then, to Claire's utter surprise, he started laughing whole-heartedly.

"Oh, fuck," he chuckled, "I can't do this with a straight face."

Claire stared at him with wide eyes, waiting for any kind of answer that would make sense. And oddly the more she looked the more things started to make sense.

Dean's face started to ripple, to change, and slowly his hair turned darker, his skin paler and his eyes melted into deep brown… No more than a minute later the man before her had shifted into a laughing Sylar, wearing his jeans from yesterday and a white tee-shirt. Though, apparently he hadn't stocked himself with a razor since his stubble had darkened during the night.

"You son of a bitch!" Claire roared, forgetting she was wearing only her underwear as she bolted from the bed to hit every part of his body she could reach. At first he seemed too startled to act but a moment later he took in a defensive stance and used his hands to catch her wrists.

"Calm down," he kept chuckling, "it was just a harmless joke."

"That was _not _funny!" Claire bellowed, now attempting to kick him.

"Ah, you should have seen your face! It was priceless, I swear."

They struggled for a while, him laughing and her calling him every obscenity she could come up with, until they finally fell on the bed, her underneath and him on the top, holding her hands in place on her sides.

For that short moment their faces became so close that for a fleeting second Claire thought he might close the gap between them. And he was looking at her almost like he was asking the permission to do just so.

And then that moment was gone. "Please stop trying to hit me," he said, releasing her and getting up.

They both panted heavily after their quarrel, silenced by the need to catch their breaths. Claire remembered to cover herself with a sheet and Sylar sat down on the chair beside the TV.

"What the hell?" she asked after her breathing had slowed down again.

Sylar looked up with the most innocent expression imaginable (from him, anyway).

"There's a _really_ good explanation, honestly," he promised between chuckles. "Since it's a long story, I'm gonna give you the Cliff Notes version. You were drunk, I mean I was too, it's all sort of bits and pieces, but, um, back to the story – you were drunk and you, uh… might have thrown up a little… anyways I-" he stood up and disappeared to the bathroom for a second to retrieve something "-cleaned them up," he said tossing a bundle of clothes to Claire. "Actually you were pretty coherent after, even told me you'd stick a pencil in _each_ of my eyes if I peeked while you undressed."

"Uh, thanks," Claire muttered, feeling how her face reddened slightly. "So where did you sleep?"

"In the bath," he grinned. "I didn't mean to, I think… but that's where I woke up. I guess I fell asleep while cleaning your clothes."

As Claire dressed, she realized her anger had evaporated. She might have not found Sylar's jest the least bit funny but otherwise he'd been nothing but nice to her.

"Oh, wait, where's my purse?" she asked when gathering her stuff together after she'd dressed. "Don't tell me I lost it…" She just couldn't have been _that_ stupid.

"Here," Sylar announced and threw it to her.

Claire sighed in relief but her happiness was short lived. "It's empty," she said incredulously.

"Yeah, about that…" he murmured, a guilty look on his face. _How could they both be so irresponsible?_ It was infuriating!

"We're fucked," Claire stated frankly. "We have no money, no car, and we're in the middle of nowhere. Plus I bet there isn't any place near here that accepts pure gold. This is the _last _time we stop for _a couple_ of drinks."

"C'mon, Claire, I think we had plenty of fun." Sylar said in an attempt to cheer her up. "I suggest we steal a car," he continued as if it had been a no-brainer. "Better yet, I say we steal Dean's. I saw it in the parking lot, I think it was a Dodge Challenger… and you know I love a challenge!" he ended his sentence in a singsong voice.

Claire rolled her eyes. "We can't just steal a car, what about staying off the radar? Not stirring something up?"

"Cars are stolen every single day. What's just one more?"

"I don't-"

"The guy is sleeping it off, he won't discover it's gone before noon and then we're long gone. We'll switch plates and _voila!_ the trip continues."

Claire thought about it for a moment. She thought about the scalding hot weather that will probably greet them outside this room, the long journey they still had ahead of them… "Yea, why not, let's just go."

**AN: Just wanted to mention that the (I think good) songs named in this chapter were used in the series as well and in great places (I think, again).**

**Anyway, this chapter was longer, yet less story-forwarding then the previous ones. It seems to me I'm unable to write road trips where things don't go constantly wrong. Let me know what you think!**


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: A fair warning: the following chapter will be told from Gabriel's point of view.**

**Thank you everyone who took the time to review and/or favorited/followed my story or me.  
**

_Oh, this has indeed been an interesting morning,_ Gabriel thought as he used his telekinesis to unlock the door on the driver's side of a nice silver Dodge Challenger. He'd already taken care of the car alarm with a small zap of light blue electricity.

He looked around before sitting in but thankfully the parking lot was completely deserted this early in the morning.

Hotwiring the car was simple enough as on his "Sylar days" Gabriel had mastered the skill quite well switching numerous vehicles while running from the police, the Company and everyone else that wanted to see him dead.

When the engine roared to life he almost got a heart attack. The volume of the music that burst through the speakers was earsplitting. _Some indie band_, he decided, as he turned the sound down to a bearable level. _Ah, surfers._

Gabriel drove the car to the gas station where they'd agreed to meet. Claire wasn't really up for a theft, at least not on that particular morning.

He didn't have to wait for long before she emerged from the little store with a coffee cup in each of her hands and a six-pack of beer tucked under her arm. So this is how she'd seen fit to use the last handful of coins they'd managed to scrape together. He couldn't help but smirk at that, wondering whether she was too embarrassed of last night to face today sober.

At least he was pleased to see that Dean's gas tank was almost full, so no need to spend money there.

Gabriel opened the door for her from the inside and relieved her of one of the coffee cups.

"Beer? _Really?_" he asked with a sneer after she'd climbed in. "It's barely eight o'clock in the morning."

She only gave him a look. If Gabriel had to interpret it, it would've probably been either a simple "shut up!" or something like "you have no right to judge me after that prank you pulled". Maybe it did cross some sort of a line, but he couldn't really make himself feel bad for it. Solely the memory of that utterly bewildered expression on Claire's face was enough to make him laugh.

Now that they were driving a stolen car anyway, Claire seemed to not mind that he was behind the wheel. And Gabriel was glad, because this car was sweet – nice acceleration, 6-speed manual transmission, air conditioner _and_ good speakers.

He wasn't normally very interested in cars, but after travelling in that hot tin death trap Claire had allegedly bought from somewhere in Fort Worth, he was more than enthusiastic about a comfier means of transportation.

As they drove, Claire occupied herself with digging through the glove compartment and any other space filled with stuff. She found a whole bunch of CDs that were, as the one playing currently, of modern indie artists.

"Hmm, know any of them?" Claire asked after reading a whole list of weird band names.

"No," he replied draining his coffee cup and setting it aside, his eyes on the seemingly never-ending road.

"Okay, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah."

"What? _Why?_" Gabriel frowned as he glanced at her.

"No, you doofus," Claire laughed, studying a CD case. "It's the band's name."

About five minutes later he could hear the sound of a beer can being opened from the neighboring seat followed by loud gulps.

"Ahh, delicious," she breathed, dropping the can into a cup holder between them. Her mood had apparently improved quite a bit. "Jackpot!" Claire announced next, waving a twenty dollar bill she'd just found from one of the compartments.

"Great," Gabriel nodded, "we can use that to get breakfast. I'm fucking starving."

"Oh yeah, breakfast in Amarillo!" she agreed, pointing at the town on the map she'd unfolded, and proceeded to hum the song _Is This The Way To Amarillo._

To say that Gabriel had never expected to drive through the country with a beer-drinking, 70's-songs-humming Claire Bennet would have been a colossal understatement. Once upon a time he'd thought the two of them could never be in the same room and remain civilized. But here they were, getting along just fine.

As they drove towards Amarillo, Gabriel found himself thinking about the long and painful evolution of their relationship.

Of course, he'd have to start with their first meeting in the dark girls' locker-room in Union Wells high school. She had been nothing to him back then, just another target. A very tempting target, though, with an ability to make him invincible.

It was so strange to think back on that night. Strange to think of her as just some high school cheerleader when at some point she'd began to mean so much more to him.

He could barely remember the girl he'd killed. Selective memory, he guessed. Gabriel couldn't say he'd wanted to look back on any of the murders he'd committed.

Still, he could recall Claire's face from that locker-room so easily, even after all this time. He could see in his mind's eye how she'd jumped to his back in a desperate attempt to save her friend, how he'd shoved her off so carelessly, and how he'd turned his head to see her there on the floor, the girl he'd just meant to push off his way, the girl who could regenerate, the girl he was there to kill really.

Though only pray to him at the time, Gabriel could still remember how she'd impressed him even then. She'd been scared, no doubt in that, most likely scared out of her mind, but yet she hadn't abandoned her friend, not before she told her to run. She hadn't cried or even screamed that much, she'd actually been very rational for a teenage girl.

To think of it, she'd sensed something was wrong even before he'd appeared… She always did have a great intuition.

Peter had saved her that day. In fact, it had been the first time all of them had met: him, Claire, and Peter. It seemed almost impossible now to think that he'd wanted to kill them, his best pal and the girl he'd come to think of as a friend, too, or maybe even…

After their first encounter he hadn't seen her for a while. She wasn't home after he broke out of Primatech and she'd arrived to Kirby Plaza when he was already passed out and dying of massive blood loss.

Yes, it had taken him a long time to meet her again. Maybe that's why he remembered it so clearly or maybe it was because from that day forward he hadn't aged a bit.

It was not too pleasant to recall the day he'd visited her in her home in Costa Verde, but he had to admit that he'd once again admired her bravery. He had found it almost funny then. _A target who fights back, what a joy!_ Now the thought sickened him.

But she had indeed been courageous sneaking up on him like that and sticking that blade into his chest. A shiver made its way down his spine as he thought about the pain the knife had caused.

In the end her struggling had been pointless, though. He had caught her like he caught everyone else. You can't outrun a monster, you see. Not a monster as consistent as he had been.

He could remember the way she screamed when he cut into her forehead. Sometimes those screams haunted him in his sleep. He'd hear them somewhere and rush there to stop the beast, only to be reminded that he _is_ the beast. A beast that has lost control again and killed someone.

He remembered how she lied on the table, asking him what he was doing to her. She'd been so calm, so collected regardless of what was happening to her. She'd refused to show him any weakness and that had been most impressive.

After that horrible day Sylar had seen her nearly as an equal and somehow he couldn't help but respect her. At that time he had thought he was done with her, that he'd gotten what he wanted and they'd probably never see each other again. But that's not how it had worked out anyway.

The third time they met, he'd turned a new leaf, tried to be good for a change. That disgusted expression she'd aimed at him had hurt but not as much as knowing how badly he'd hurt her. When he'd touched her arm, the surge of feelings that had hit him had been so vivid, so powerful that for the first time he'd actually understood what a monster he really was and how scared his victims must have felt. That understanding was like reaching the surface of a deep black sea, taking a breath of fresh air after a very long time. Because after so long he felt empathy, he felt awful for what he'd done.

And yet again she'd surprised him. The way she wanted nothing more than just to help Canfield and how she insisted that the poor man didn't have to go through with her father's plan to kill Sylar. The fact that hate hadn't consumed her the way it had consumed himself and Noah was admirable. After everything that had happened to her, somehow her innocence had survived. Right then he knew that she was special, more than he'd ever thought.

The fourth time they came face to face was when he and Elle wanted to take Claire to Pinehearst. That encounter was more of a blur to him though. So many things had happened and he'd learned some hard truths that night, but he could still remember the way Claire rushed to offer herself up to protect her family. She never took a day off from being good, did she?

The next time in Primatech… that had been a bloodbath he was not proud of. It hadn't really been about Claire. She, as always, had just been caught in the middle. First he'd chased her for her ability, then for her blood as a catalyst, and then just because he wanted revenge and Claire was the common denominator, important to both Angela Petrelli and Noah Bennet whom he wanted to destroy. No, it wasn't really her fault, just fate can be cruel sometimes.

And then there was of course that day at Stanton Hotel. He wondered if he could ever make up for that. He'd told her how he'd murder each and every person she loved, told her that one day she might come to love him, and she had sat there, full of righteous fury, swearing that one day she'd kill him. He wished he could erase that day, but then again, he wished he could erase so many things. But erasing a single event without changing the whole outcome was impossible, he knew that. And he wouldn't want to erase the long way they've come since then.

Gabriel knew she'd probably never love him. And he wasn't sure if he'd be able to love anyone at all. But he understood her and she understood him, not Sylar but _him_, even if she denied it. They both knew about the loneliness of eternity, had battled the guilt of past actions, and yearned to escape this world at times through any means possible.

He also knew that somehow he felt less lonely when he was with her. And somewhere inside of him he sensed that she was slipping away, slipping into indifference like he had, and he wanted to help her. He just didn't know how.

"Hey, do you even hear me?" Claire's voice disturbed Gabriel's thoughts and he suddenly realized he'd been so captivated by the memories, that he'd forgotten everything else around him except the road straight ahead. It was as if he'd been on autopilot.

"Gabe?" she spoke again, slightly irritated and even a tad concerned.

"What?" he mumbled, snapping back to reality. "Did you just call me _Gabe?_"

"Yeah," she grinned. "It sounds more natural than Gabriel, I guess." But he'd always be Sylar to her, wouldn't he? He hoped not. "Anyway, look at that place," she pointed at a small diner on the corner of a street. "Seems alright for a bite?"

"Sure," he replied and turned left to park in front of it.

They went in and sat down to one of the tables. A blonde waitress appeared soon after their arrival.

"What will it be?" she asked with a wide smile, a pen readily between her fingers to write down their order.

Gabriel requested eggs and bacon with a cup of coffee and an orange juice, and Claire ordered a plate of pancakes and a glass of chocolate milk.

"Are you alright?" she asked when they'd eaten is silence for a while. "You seem like you're somewhere else."

"Sorry," he smiled. "I was just thinking, but I'm all yours now."

"Good, because we still have several hours of driving ahead of us and I'd hate for you to fall asleep and drive the car to a ditch," she japed. "What were you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing important."

"We'll get to the bottom of all of this," Claire said, her tone serious now. "We'll get Emma back and we'll find out what happened to you." She said it with such conviction that Gabriel just had to smile at her. This was the Claire he remembered, this stubborn Claire who wouldn't back down from anything, who would never stop saving the people she loved and the whole world along with them. Even when she tried not to.

Soon they were back on the road again, out of Amarillo and on their way towards Cañon City.

For some reason Gabriel wasn't so sure he wanted to know what had happened to him. He had a bad feeling about it, although he knew they had to find out if they ever wanted this to be over.

He was more concerned about Emma, though. And he couldn't imagine what this was doing to Peter.

Peter. He hoped he was alright, wherever he was. _He'll find us_, he told himself firmly. _He won't let us down, he never has._

They reached Cañon City a little before four o'clock and found the Colorado State Penitentiary quite easily. Thankfully the visiting hours had not ended yet. Claire entered the prison alone since it was unlikely he would be allowed to see Flint anyway. They couldn't be certain Claire's uncle would even agree to see her, they weren't close or anything.

The day was bright as the one before it and Gabriel thought how glad he was to be alive again. He left the music on in the car and opened the door to stretch out his legs as he lit a cigarette. He seemed to fancy them recently. It was nice to actually _see_ that his lungs worked as he blew out a puff of smoke, watching it fade in the air.

"Gabe!" He heard Claire's voice then. And the way she said 'Gabe' felt like a very small step away from mockery. It was funny. "Let's go! I think I can get us both in."

Gabriel stood up to see her walking towards him with a wicked smile on her face. He gave her a curt nod, put out the cigarette and locked the car before he followed her into the building.

"Just play along, okay?" she said as they entered.

"Alright," he agreed, frowning in confusion.

She led them to two guards whom she'd been obviously talking to before, because they turned their eyes on them as soon as they came into the room. The female guard seemed to be measuring him up, which made Gabriel feel a bit uncomfortable, the man was just smiling at Claire.

"So this is him," Claire said with the sweetest, most loving tone he'd ever heard her use. "Gabriel – my soon-to-be fiancé. My, uh, my parents passed away some years ago, so he wanted to ask my uncle for permission to marry me," she continued as if it would've been the cutest thing in the world. "He's old-fashioned like that," Claire finished, giving him a beaming smile. She'd really become a rather smooth liar.

Gabriel had no idea what she'd told the guards before she came to fetch him but against all odds, they let them both pass.

After they'd been searched thoroughly and declared fit for visiting, one of the guards ushered them into a small room. It was split in the middle by a thick glass wall, no doubt reinforced to stand the nastiest of abilities. There was a table on either side with one chair on the prisoner's side and several on the guests' side.

"You may have to wait for a minute," the guard said. "Once he's here, you'll have twenty minutes. And yes, you can hear each other through the glass, the speakers are on." With that he turned around and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

"Okay, we have twenty minutes," Claire spoke as soon as the door fell shut. "What do we ask him? He probably doesn't even know anything!" She sounded a little panicky.

"Calm down, we'll get something," he promised. "There has to be at least some kind of a clue, something to help us find them."

The door on the other side of the room opened and Flint stepped in, with small paces as his feet were connected with a chain, fetters around his ankles. He's hands were bound similarly and he was naturally wearing an orange jumpsuit. He looked older, but his round head was still bald like an egg.

For a long while Flint seemed to be unable to turn his eyes away from his niece.

"Claire, I never thought-" he started in his Southern drawl, but then his gaze flickered to the right, just for a second, but he recognized him immediately nonetheless. "Sylar?" he whispered, sheer dread in his voice.

"No need to be afraid of me," Gabriel said quickly, slightly annoyed by that effect he often had on people that used to know him.

"Why are you here?" Flint asked sheepishly, though Gabriel had to admit he wasn't dumb enough to think they were visiting him just for chit-chat.

"We want to know about the True Nation," Claire said quietly but insistently.

"The _what?_"

_Oh great, fucking great_, Gabriel thought.

"The organization that blackmailed you," Claire explained.

"Oh, those bastards," he said through clenched teeth. "I tried to tell the cops about them but they thought I was just crazy or somethin'."

"What did they want you to do?" she continued.

"Burn down some office in Denver."

"_Whose_ office?" Gabriel was losing his patience. _How could this idiot be related to Claire?_

"It was some ten months ago, so don't think I remember all the names and shit. It was some senator and I think he sorta deserved it 'cause he wanted to lock up the likes of us anyway."

"Thomas Conner," he said at once.

"How'd ya know?" Flint murmured, his brow raised.

"I watch the news, I remember the story. Senator Conner's office was burned down by 'some evolved maniac' and…" he stopped for a moment, thinking back on the news story, "and a files clerk died in the fire."

"I never meant for anyone to die," Flint whispered resignedly. "The building was supposed to be empty."

"How did they contact you?" Claire asked almost gently.

"First I found a letter when I came home one night saying that they needed my cooperation and there'd be dire consequences should I refuse. I didn't think much of it, just that some nutjob had found out about what I can do and wanted to make an easy buck. So when they called me I just hung up. Two days later there was a robbery in the garage I worked and one of my coworkers got killed. Coppers said it was just robbing-gone-wrong, but I knew it was them behind it. I mean there wasn't much money to take from a car repair shop. Next time they called I listened what they had to say. They told me I'd be next if I didn't do a little job for 'em, so I had to agree. Next morning there was an envelope on my desk with an address inside. So I did what they wanted, just someone else must've known and ratted me out, because the cops got there _way_ too fast."

"Definitely their MO," Gabriel muttered and Claire nodded at him.

"But you have no idea how they found you, found out about your ability?" she inquired.

"No, um, I mean I'm not chipped by the government and I've been under the radar for years," he shook his head.

There was a short moment of silence between the three of them. _What now?_

"Okay let's go back to the beginning," Gabriel started, his mind trying to come up with a question that would produce a solution. _How did they find people with abilities?_ Not knowing was driving him mad. "Before the letters and everything, what did you do? Anything out of the ordinary? Or did you notice something strange, perhaps?" As if there was a chance this oaf had noticed anything at all…

"Before this all happened?" he repeated slowly, in thought. "Nothing much I guess. I'd broken my leg some time ago, so I was hobbling around with crutches, couldn't even get out of the house much."

Gabriel could actually feel the gears in his head turning, the way his mind was putting together all the puzzle pieces… damn, there were still so many missing. "The hospital records," he said then, looking up at them. "That's how they find them – _the hospital records_. They must have a way to access them and… did they take your blood, Flint?"

"Yea," he said with an utterly confused look plastered on his face. He must've had a hard time understanding it all. "I had an open wound so they said it was for making sure there were no infections."

"Of course! The blood will give them all the answers. All they need to do is to check whether the patient has the gene mutation and analyze what his possible ability may be." He turned to Claire, finally satisfied that he'd understood it. "That's how they found Kenrick before us. Suresh uses the Human Genome Project and has lists and lists of names of possibly evolved, they use fresh records. It's pretty brilliant, to be honest. Against the law, but brilliant."

"Does that mean you can get me out of here?" Flint put in, a hopeful look on his face.

"No… we don't have any proof yet, and even if we did, it doesn't undo the fact that somebody died because of your actions," Claire said, her eyes fixed on him. There was a glint of curiosity in them and maybe even a splash of sorrow. He was her uncle after all.

"In which hospital were you?" Gabriel asked.

"Uh, Wyoming Medical Center."

"That's where we're headed then," he told Claire as he got up.

She followed his lead hesitantly.

"Wait," Flint said just before they reached the door. "Will you come and see me again?" he asked Claire.

She glanced at Gabriel and then turned herself towards Flint, not knowing what to say.

"You remind me of her, you know," he continued. "Meredith. Not even your appearance so much, but just the way you are. And I miss her."

"I don't even know you."

"I know. And that's my fault, but-"

She cut him off. "I can't make any promises. I won't." And just like that she brushed past Gabriel and out of the door. He followed her, not giving Flint another look. He couldn't – he was the one who had killed the sister he loved so much.

They sat into the car, but Gabriel didn't start the engine.

"I suppose we need a new map," he said uncertainly, observing his companion. Claire seemed somehow defeated. He wondered whether it was the result of meeting the uncle she never had the time to get to know or maybe being reminded of her mother who was taken from her too soon or it could have been something else entirely.

Intuitive aptitude didn't really work on people, at least not like it worked on machinery. Gabriel often wished it did, it would have been _so_ much easier that way. If he could just understand. Like right now: he didn't know if he was supposed to comfort Claire or pretend nothing was wrong at all?

"Yeah, let's just go," she said then, and he obeyed, turning the ignition to start the car.

They drove for hours, passing through the brightly lit Denver and then onwards towards the state of Wyoming. Gabriel found himself wondering will this road trip ever end, not that he really minded being on the road with Claire. Just every clue seemed to take them to a new place, only the answers they received were never enough to solve the mystery.

It was already dark outside when they finally stopped in Cheyenne to grab a cup of coffee, some food, and flip through a phone book to find where they had to go next. They soon found out that Wyoming Medical Center was located in a town called Casper.

"Excuse me," Gabriel called out to one of the passing waitresses.

She turned to him with a polite smile of her face. "Yes, sir?"

"Can you tell me how far Casper is?"

"Uhm, to the north and then northwest through Douglas. Maybe three hours or a little less," she quickly said before hurrying to another table.

"Thank you," he mumbled, though she was already too far to hear him. He looked at Claire: "Are you ready?"

"Absolutely," she replied, and he was glad to see a confident smile curving her lips.

**AN: So I wanted to give you a glimpse of what is going on in Gabriel's head as well. The next chapters will be written from Claire's point of view as usual.**

**I realize that switching POV's for a chapter like this isn't exactly conventional but since it's FanFiction and there're no rules really, I think it's okay to take certain liberties.**


	8. Chapter 8

"_Claire_," Sylar said through gritted teeth, "if you sing _Casper the Friendly Ghost_ one more time I swear to God I will stop this car and I will gag you."

"Alright, alright!" Claire laughed, squeezing a can of beer between her fingers before taking a sip. She still had three of them left since the morning.

The time was nearing midnight and the road before them was a dark line edged with gloomy forest on either side. The cloudy sky above them appeared almost black with no stars visible and the moon tucked away.

Casper was still a half hour away, so Claire enjoyed the short resting time she had left fiddling with the radio and peeking out of the window though it wasn't much to see in the darkness.

First drops of rain hit against the windshield just as they reached the town and within five minutes it was pouring down like someone had released the floodgates.

"Where to now?" Sylar asked impatiently, a scowl on his face. He seemed weary of the long drive, tired and cranky.

Claire kept turning the map, tracing the road with her index finger. "Just a sec."

He wasn't obviously in the mood for waiting since he snatched the map from her hands and took a look himself. Although Claire wanted to protest she had to admit to her chagrin that her map reading skills were shy of terrible and that they hadn't gotten lost once since he'd taken the wheel.

Sylar gave a small nod, more to himself, she guessed, folded the paper and handed it back to Claire before he drove on.

They stopped in front of the hospital no more than fifteen minutes later.

Wyoming Medical Center seemed like a huge gray block through the water-streaked glass, its lit windows as if small lanterns amidst fog.

"So how are we going to play this?" Claire asked crumpling the beer can she'd just emptied.

Sylar gave her a once-over, his face thoughtful, before a smirk slowly lit up his face. "Don't worry, I already have a plan."

Reaching the hospital's front door without getting soaked turned out to be utterly impossible. So even though they moved their legs as fast as they could, they both still got completely wet.

The ER was nearly empty at this time of the night and the waiting room therefore quiet. Only a young tired-looking nurse sat at the reception, her light brown hair pulled up to a pony tail and her pen slowly scraping against paper as she was filling a patient chart or something similar.

Sylar ran a hand through his black mess of a hair and coughed loudly enough to pull her attention on them.

The nurse, Claire quickly glanced at her nametag that read Melanie something, looked up with mild surprise and set the pen aside.

"Good evening, sir," she politely said, "what seems to be the problem?"

"Uh, my, um, friend here," Sylar started awkwardly, motioning Claire at the same time. He then leaned closer to the nurse, who seemed to be debating whether to pull away from the strange man or not, set his hand gently on hers and whispered something in her ear.

Claire pricked up her ears and tried to listen what he was saying but was unable to make out the words.

Nurse Melanie only nodded, her eyes fixed on the table. When he was done, she simply stood up, whispered quickly "I'll be right back with Doctor Barkley," and disappeared to one of the several long corridors.

"What did you tell her?" Claire asked, confused.

"Nothing important," he said smugly, moving his hand on her shoulder as he led her down one of the other corridors. "Now move before she comes back."

"Tell me," she hissed petulantly, but followed his orders nonetheless.

He only chuckled quietly and urged her further along the hallway.

The corridors were silent like the rest of the hospital and seemed a little eerie in the dim light. Claire could hear the rain beating against the windows with a monotone drum and for some reason there was an uncomfortable knot in her stomach as if something bad was about to go down.

_We're here just for some information_, she told herself calmly. _We'll get the hospital records, find out what can be found, and leave. Not so difficult, right?_

"Do you have _any_ idea where we have to go?" Claire muttered almost inaudibly.

When she turned around for an answer she almost screamed, taking a rushed step away, almost stumbling against the wall.

"Shushh!" nurse Melanie hissed irritably, "It's me, you idiot."

"Oh my God, Sylar!" Claire mouthed furiously, "you could have given me the heads-up! You scared me half to death!"

"Don't be so dramatic," he… _or she?_ said. This shape-shifting thing was way too creepy on Claire's opinion. Even though she knew she was speaking to Sylar, all she could see was this random nurse she'd just met two minutes ago. It was beyond weird.

"This way we can walk around the hospital without raising suspicion. Should we encounter anyone I can just say that you're my drunken patient on her way to a gastric lavage," he continued, speaking so fast she could barely separate the words.

"So what's the next step, Mr. Mastermind?" Claire said, rolling her eyes.

He shrugged nonchalantly and said: "We find the stairwell and head to the basement. Hopefully that's where the records are archived."

Finding their way through the barely-lit hospital while avoiding any run-ins with the staff wasn't the easiest task but they managed to reach the basement with passing only a janitor and some nurse who thankfully didn't bother to stop and chat with "Melanie".

Sylar shifted back to his regular form as soon as they descended down the stairs. They followed yet another corridor passing door after door with different signs on them. One that said 'Morgue' gave Claire a bit of the creeps.

Finally they became to a halt before a door that promised to lead them in the right direction. The worn-out sign declared 'Archives'.

Sylar used his telekinesis to unlock the door only to proceed unlocking a whole row of them, diving deeper into the "dark underbelly of Wyoming Medical" as he described it. It was time-consuming, not to mention annoying, to feel around every new room to find the light switch and, in cases they couldn't find it, follow the dull flame of Sylar's lighter.

When they reached the actual archives, Claire knew she had to revaluate the word 'time-consuming'. The room was huge, spreading out in the darkness to as far as she could see and filled with file cabinets. _Jeez_, there must have been hundreds of them.

It took them hours to try and figure out the logic in the filing system, walking from cabinet to cabinet to review the files' dates and departments they belonged to. But finally – _finally_ – Sylar secured his long fingers around the folder they had been seeking: Flint Gordon jr, dated nearly 10 months ago, admitted with a broken leg.

Sylar flipped the file open and they both stood side by side for a long moment, motionless, only their eyes moving to read line after line of medical text.

"_This_," Sylar said thoughtfully, tapping his finger against the spot on the paper, "Medical Laboratory Scientist on the case was Laura Fleming. She analyzed the blood. She's our rat."

"How do you know it's not the nurse who took the blood?" Claire said skeptically, pointing at another name.

Sylar looked at her, weighing what she'd said before he answered. "I guess I don't. But logic dictates that whoever they hired was much closer to the patients' blood than a regular nurse."

"Okey-dokey," Claire hummed, looking around the vast room with her hands on her hips. "So what now? It's in the middle of the night, I doubt she's at work."

"Probably not," Sylar agreed nodding his head slowly. "So I think we should pay her a visit… And on a completely unrelated subject," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "how good of a hacker are you? Because we need to get to the hospital's mainframe if we want to get her address."

Claire cocked an eyebrow at him. "Not as good as Rebel, obviously, but then again… I doubt they protect their system _that_ carefully anyway."

It didn't take them long to locate a computer and then another ten minutes to get access to Fleming's information sheet.

Sylar searched the table they were at for a piece of paper and scribbled down the address announcing a hasty "let's go" just as soon as he put down the pen.

They sneaked past the reception, thankfully not running into a soul, and got wet from head to toe all over again as they walked-kind-of-ran to the car.

…

The time was half past three in the morning when they stopped across the street from an apartment building carrying the address of one Laura Fleming.

"So what do we do?" Claire asked curiously. Her mind was wide awake but her body was putting up a small resistance, tired and craving for sleep. She hadn't gotten much of it in the past few days and now she was starting to feel the consequences. "It wouldn't be exactly nice to storm into someone's home in the middle of the night and demand answers which, by the way, she might not give us willingly."

Even Sylar seemed somewhat at loss for once as he stared at the building that looked rather blurry through the wet windshield. "I guess we _could_ wait for a few hours. She's no use to us sleepy and dazed..."

"Still," Claire wouldn't relent. "How are we supposed to get the info out of her? You up for some torture?" she inquired with fake enthusiasm.

It was almost funny how the ex-serial killer paled visibly at her words. "Wait a minute!" he stuttered, "I'm not gonna be doing any torture so you-"

"You're the only one of us who has any experience in that department," she snapped, her weariness showing again. She wanted to be done with it already, stop at some run-down motel and throw herself face-down on a lumpy bed. And that meant that she couldn't really take her companion's feelings into account if she ever wanted to get away from the small rainy town.

Sylar looked her appraisingly, his brow furrowed, as if trying to figure out whether she was serious about it. He dug out a cigarette and lit it, his other hand rolling down the window slightly.

"Do you have to do it here?" Claire whined, waving a hand and wrinkling her nose. "I can't stand the smell."

He only threw the pack on her lap and said: "If you don't like it, light one for yourself. Takes the mind of the smell."

His words made hardly any sense to Claire, but she settled on giving him a stern glance. For a moment she debated whether to throw the pack out of the window or perhaps break it in half but decided against it. He'd just waste more money on the damn things.

So they camped out in the car, the music volume turned low and eyes trained on the building across the street.

Claire's mind kept wandering on Laura Fleming, thinking how they'd get the answers out of her and if she had any answers to give to begin with. She wasn't obviously thrilled about the idea of torturing the information out of her but she couldn't see how else to crack her.

At the Company that task landed almost always on Matt Parkman. There were few people who could resist his power and that made it easy to get what they needed. Oh, what she'd given right now to possess his ability. It would have made things _so_ much simpler for them.

Sylar's gruff voice startled her out of her musings. "I'm thinking she might not need more than a good fright to get her talking. Well, depending on how dedicated she is on 'the cause', of course."

"What do you mean?" Claire murmured, not turning her eyes from the apartment building.

"I mean her resolve not to blabber out her secrets probably depends on whether she's actually a member of this…" his face twisted with distaste, "…True Nation or whether she's just a hireling bribed to give them information, maybe even blackmailed into helping them like Flint or Kenrick."

"Hmm, good point," she agreed, "and we'll find out the truth _pretty_ soon."

…

Time passed slowly the next few hours and Claire kept nodding off, in and out of dreams.

The latest of them was rather disturbing. She found herself in the Evolved Humans' Administrating Agency in New York the day she'd been chipped. Everything was exactly the same – the sun that shone through the long windows of the fourteenth floor, the uncomfortable chair she was sitting on and the unpleasant woman who was marking down her information, shooting her dirty looks as if she was carrying some contagious disease.

The whole excruciating ordeal was finished off with 'the great chipping process' which, in other words, meant that the unpleasant women took out a small device, placed it on her forearm and pushed a button to insert the chip in her skin.

However, the dream proceeded in a very much different way than it had in real life. As Claire walked away from the desk she couldn't stop staring at the angry red spot on her skin where the small tracking device was embedded.

She knew it was bad, she knew it was not meant to be. It was infecting her, with what, she did not know. But she knew it was doing something horrible to her, killing her.

And the next thing she knew, she was trying to claw it out of her forearm. Warm blood smeared her skin and her fingers, but she couldn't find it. _Where was it?_ She couldn't feel the pain, didn't even cringe at the sight of scratched flesh and blood that seemed to have spilled on everything by now, only growing anxiety. She needed to find it! That thing was _killing _her!

Claire jerked awake, her eyes darting around nervously. She lied on the passenger seat, right where she was supposed to be, her arm as unhurt. It was light outside, not very bright though, since the sky was still grey and somber and it was drizzling.

She spotted Sylar standing outside next to the driver's door smoking a cigarette. His one hand kept raising the smoking stub to his lips and the other was shoved into his pants pocket. It must've been cold outside, Claire thought, judging it by the hunched manner his companion was standing.

He noticed her almost instantly and knocked on the side window, motioning for her to get out of the car.

"Are you ready?" he tried chipperly, but his voice sounded hoarse.

"You bet," she smiled, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. The weather was indeed cold and after a slumber it felt downright freezing.

It was quarter to eight when Claire and Sylar walked up the stairwell to find apartment 3B.

As they reached their destination, he knocked on the door, clearing his throat.

It took three sessions of Sylar banging his fist against the door before a squeaky voice sounded from inside, demanding who was there that early in the morning.

Sylar glanced at Claire, his eyes wide as if he hadn't even given a thought about what to say. Claire stared back at him, eyes equally bewildered as she mouthed the words "are you serious". They must have been both still half asleep to slip up like that.

He only gave her a shrug that seemed to say 'hope this'll work' and said: "Your new neighbors."

"Uh, new neighbors?" the feminine voice repeated suspiciously.

Sylar cringed slightly at her answer, realizing he might have made up a lie a dab more elaborate, and Claire felt glad that the door didn't have a peephole.

"Ugh," he groaned, "this is way too tedious at 8 o'clock in the morning." He flicked his finger and the lock clicked open.

Sylar pushed through the door like a bolt of lightning so before the woman inside could even let out a scream, he'd stopped her at the spot she was standing, not allowing her to move a muscle.

Claire felt a pang of genuine sorry for the woman remembering just how frightening it is to be under the control of that particular power.

_Still, no time for stuff like that, _she reminded herself quickly as she scanned the corridor, making sure no one had witnessed their little breaking and entering. After ensuring they'd been alone, she stepped into the apartment and closed the door quietly behind her.

Sylar circled the woman standing in the hallway, still facing the front door. He seemed to be fully awake now and functioning on his robot-mode or whatever one may call it. Claire recognized it immediately from his calculating gaze and the way he was rubbing his chin like some evil villain.

The woman, who was most likely Laura Fleming, looked like a fence rail, straight and stiff, only her eyes were large and filled with fear, moving from one of her captors to the other with nervous jumps.

"Alright, this is what we're going to do now," Sylar said in a sweet voice, that also managed to be low and threatening, his eyes fixed on the woman with such intensity that Claire couldn't blame her for looking like the doomsday had come. "You're not going to scream, you're not going to prattle and you're most certainly not going to lie to us, right?"

The woman gave him a small nod, her eyes widening even more (if possible) in surprise that she could make even such a small movement.

"Now I'm going to let you speak and you're going to answer any questions I ask you," he continued slowly as if he was speaking to a child, then switched to a bit lighter tone. "If you do as I say there's _no_ reason for me to hurt you, okay?"

She gave another frightful nod and Sylar smiled at her in that creepy manner he seemed to save especially for situations like that. Claire only watched them with stunned interest, unable to interfere.

"What is your name?" Sylar started, making only the tiniest motion with his hand to release her mouth.

"Laura Fleming," she cheeped obediently.

"Ah, spectacular," he sneered, "and do you work as a Medical Laboratory Scientist in Wyoming Medical Center?"

"Yes," she admitted her eyes now wary as if already suspecting what it might be about. Or was it Claire's imagination?

Sylar wasn't obviously in the mood to drag it out, so he got right to the point: "Do you know an organization called the True Nation?"

Laura seemed to still even more than she already was, her face blank. "Never heard of it," she said with unbending conviction, looking straight in her interrogator's eyes.

Sylar looked at her for a while before he emitted a quiet (and somewhat disturbing) chuckle. "You're lying. And you're not very good at it. Not that it would matter to me if you were the best damn liar in the world. Maybe I forgot to mention this, but I can_ tell_ when someone's not honest with me."

If possible, the fear in Laura's eyes turned into something alarmingly similar to horror.

"Now let's try this again – do you know an organization called the True Nation?"

"Yes," she replied, her answer barely a whisper.

"Do you work for them?"

"Yes."

"And what do you get in return?"

"Money."

"Oh, Laura, don't you know that the money's never worth the risk?" It was a rhetorical question. "One day a bad man like me comes along and then it's too late to regret your decisions." Sylar shook his head mock ruefully before he spoke again: "So what is it you exactly do for them?"

"I, uh, I identify possible evolved humans and their abilities," she said reluctantly, her voice emotionless, "then forward the information to them."

"Well, tell me about _them_. Who are they, where do they operate from?"

"I can't." The two words came out in a quick blurt as if Laura had barely time to think before uttering them.

"You can," Sylar assured her in a resolute tone. "In fact, you'll have little choice in the matter."

"No, _please_." Laura had turned from scared to defeated by now. When she raised her eyes again, they were pleading. "Please don't make me tell you," she said, meeting his harsh unrelenting gaze.

"Why?" He sounded almost bored.

"Because they'll kill me."

"Not if we kill you first."

There was a long pause and Claire was unwilling to move, not wanting to break the silence. She stood like she'd stood the whole time, as if she was a statue, only her eyes travelling between Sylar and Laura, and this tight feeling arising in her chest as she heard all these words. _Just empty threats,_ she thought. _He'd said she'll crack after a good fright, hadn't he?_ That's what he was trying to accomplish, no more.

"_Tell me_," Sylar's voice demanded insistently.

Claire pushed her thoughts aside and fixed her eyes on Laura once again. She certainly wasn't a tough kind of a girl judging from the pathetic whimper she gave. Yes, she was very close to her breaking point and from that it was easy to deduce that this girl couldn't have lasted a minute of torture.

"Now would be a good time, Laura, because I'm losing my patience."

Laura seemed to go limp, even though her body couldn't really respond being in the grip of Sylar's ability. She sighed before she spoke, her eyes downcast and something oddly reminding a small smile on her lips. She looked sad. "I guess you're right. Doesn't matter anyway. I just wish I'd waited ten years before I got into this life-threatening business, 'cause I'm far too young to die." Her tone was sarcastic now. _The last defiance, perhaps?_ "Ah, yes, the True Nation," she continued monotonously, then, to Claire's surprise, she let out an anxious chuckle. "It's funny," Laura shook her head as if enjoying some private joke. "All I _can_ give you is one man. Mr. Jenkins. He recruited me, he's the one I send all my data to. That's all I know."

Sylar seemed completely unmoved by her words, almost like he hadn't been listening to anything but the one piece of information they needed. "There must be hundreds of Mr. Jenkins' around the country so if you _don't mind_… we need a first name."

"Howard. Howard Jenkins. And I have his address in the notebook by the phone." She motioned towards it with her head.

Claire suddenly found her feet moving. She picked up the notebook and skimmed through it. "Got it," she informed them once she came to the letter J.

"Perfect. Let's go," Sylar said, turning towards the door.

"Wait," Claire said, making him stop. "What do we do with her?"

"I… eh," he swirled back around, that calculating face on. "Quite truthfully?"

"Yes," she drawled out the word, suspecting nothing good.

"Well then…" Sylar looked as if he was gathering himself before he opened his mouth again. "We _should_ kill her."

"WHAT!" Laura protested, throwing her hands up and then staring at them in surprise since she hadn't expected to be in control of her body again. "You promised you wouldn't hurt me!" she added then, looking from one of her captor to another with desperate eyes.

"Now to think of it, I suppose I shouldn't have made that promise," Sylar said thoughtfully, his voice laced with a splash of guilt. "I mean it's not like we _want _to do it but I can't see many options here."

"Whoa! Stop right there!" Claire said, her arms stretched out, palms towards her partner-in-crime. "_I _am _not_ going to kill her." _And neither are you_, she added mentally.

"Oh, and so it has to be _me_? You're the Company agent, you do it!" he threw back, looking at her incredulously.

Claire only shook her head, her arms folded.

For a moment Sylar looked outraged, his face flashing with anger. "Alright," he said, his voice higher than usually and his eyebrows raised. "We'll just let her go. She'll call this Jenkins fellow the moment we walk out the-"

"I won't!" Laura cut in, her voice forcefully sincere. "I _promise_ I won't tell anyone, _please_." She sounded raw like she was about to start crying and perhaps sink down to her knees and beg them to spare her.

"You're right, you're right," Claire sighed as if she hadn't even noticed Laura's heartfelt pleads. She felt her agent mode click on which meant dealing with problems using logic and rationality instead of her emotions. "Sooo…" she started casually, meeting Sylar's expectant eyes with some challenge, "since neither of us volunteers to kill her and, let's face it, it would be far too messy… the issue of hiding the body and etcetera and etcetera… plus the fact that her part in this is considerable but not worthy of a death sentence..." She saw him now nodding in agreement, his eyes staring at nothing in particular, and felt the sudden urge to burst into laughter for some unexplainable reason. "I propose we tie her up and take her with us. If what she said is true and Howard Jenkins is the only member of True Nation she knows, we can let her go after we've met him."

Sylar opened his mouth for a second as if to argue but then closed it again looking up. "Okay," was all he said at first, then after measuring up their captive: "I'll go find some rope or something."

When Claire glanced at Laura, she was just in the middle of sighing in relief. "Kitchen counter, bottom drawer!" she yelled to Sylar.

Claire chuckled at that half-heartedly. "Aren't you a handy prisoner," she muttered under her breath.

…

"For heaven's sake, do we have to drive through the _entire_ continent to be done with this 'scavenger hunt'?" Sylar grumbled as he turned the car back onto the highway.

"I have to admit, this is really getting old. I'd understand Idaho or Montana or Nebraska or…" Claire stopped, trying to remember any other neighboring states and not coming up with any. "But Washington? Cold, rainy, damn Washington! That's like a million miles away."

"And the guy lives in a city called Richland? Tell me that's not fucked."

Laura must have been praying back there for them to shut up already, Claire thought after she realized she and Sylar had been whining about the whereabouts of their next destination for the last thirty minutes.

"Maybe if we drive in shifts we could make it faster…" Claire mused, her gaze turned on the milky gray sky, her cheek leant against the side window.

"If you're up for it, because, you know, we haven't slept normally for days. At least I had plenty of rest spending the last four months dead, but you…" Sylar trailed off, raising a hand to hide a huge yawn.

Claire could feel Laura's abashed stare on the back of her head, but decided to ignore it. It surely must have been weird for her to hear them talking about such matters in a completely carefree tone.

"I'm up for it," she said confidently, a smile tugging at her lips. "I couldn't really rest peacefully anyway knowing there're some lunatics out there, probably plotting our deaths as we speak."

"_Agreed_," Sylar drawled absently, his eyes on the road.

…

The drive was long and boring and somewhat awkward with Laura on the backseat, observing them the whole time. She must have been too scared to sleep wondering if they'd rethink this thing, and stick a knife in her gut or something.

Sylar and Claire switched seats in Sheridan grabbing some coffee while they were at it, then resumed the silent drive, neither in the mood to talk especially with a stranger in the car.

They swapped places again in Billings, because Claire kept blinking her sleepy eyes and Sylar, who stubbornly refused to fall asleep, kept commenting on her driving skills that embarked yet another dispute.

It was nearly ten hours later when they arrived in Missoula, a small city in northwestern Montana, and came to a conclusion that they simply have to stop on account of their very empty stomachs.

They were waiting on a red light to turn green, when something they had not anticipated happened. The two of them were scanning the streets for a decent place to eat and arguing about what they wanted to munch on while Laura stared helplessly between them.

Claire had just raised the point that Sylar needed to turn something into gold so they could pawn it, because they had almost no money, when the traffic light turned green and he pushed the gas pedal making the car accelerate.

They were in the middle of crossing the intersection when Sylar suddenly shouted: "What the fuck?"

Claire's head snapped to the left, in the direction he was looking at, and the last thing she saw before the blackness hit her was a large SUV speeding right towards them.

**AN: So this took quite a while… **_**again**_**. But I blame school. Hope you're still with me, though! Oh, and sorry for the cliffhanger, but I figured I haven't left you with one for some time and I was really looking forward to reaching this point in the story. Hope to update quicker this time, but I guess I'll just have to see how things play out.**

**Thank you to everyone who left a review last time! **

**Don't hesitate to give me your thoughts on this one.**


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